Heads is Heads
by Technomad
Summary: Mangaverse AU: What if Kazuo's coin toss had come up differently---and he had chosen to resist The Program? Kazuo/Izumi, Shogo/Takako, Mitsuru/Hirono
1. Chapter 1

Heads is Heads, a Battle Royale manga fan fiction

By Technomad

Chapter One: Heads is Heads

Kazuo stared down at the coin in his hand. Gleaming, silvery in the pale moonlight, it showed heads.

He had opted to leave the whole thing to chance. If the coin had shown tails, he would have played the game, participated in the Program--and played to win. The only way to play.

As things stood, though, the coin had come down heads. That settled it--he would resist the Program, sabotage it if possible, and escape alive, with as many of his classmates as possible.

Below the rock he was perching on, his gang members awaited his decision eagerly. They thought they were throwing for a chance at the girl they'd dragged along. Her sobs echoed in the night as she was held by Hiroshi and Ryuhei. That attracted Kazuo's attention.

"Release her," he directed them. As always, his voice was utterly quiet. Kazuo never raised his voice, never showed emotion--Mitsuru in particular was always in awe of him for that particular trait. His gang were ruled by emotion and impulse, and that made them pitifully easy to manipulate. Without him, they'd be nothing but juvenile delinquents. With him, though--they'd challenged Yakuza and come out on top.

However, they were what he had to work with, and Kazuo had never been one to repine. "I _said_, release her." Obedient as always, Hiroshi and Ryuhei let go of the girl--her name was Izumi Kanai, he remembered--and she stood there, rubbing her arms and staring up at him in disbelief. The moonlight painted the tear-streaks on her cheeks silver.

"But--boss!" That was Hiroshi. "We were hoping for a pink party!" That was their euphemism for a gang-rape. It was not an amusement that Kazuo, himself favored; he had more than enough willing partners, but one that his followers often enjoyed. Kazuo raised one eyebrow, and Hiroshi stammered into silence.

"This isn't the time or the place." Kazuo made a shooing motion toward the girl, who was staring up at him as though she'd never seen him before. "Go on--along with you. _We_ have important business to discuss, and _you're_ not necessary."

"Not necessary?" Izumi looked puzzled, then angry. "Why? You have me here--why not make an end? Go on," she sneered, her contempt for Kazuo and his followers breaking through her fear, "kill me! That's what the Program's all about, isn't it?"

Graceful as a cat, Kazuo leaped down from his rock perch. "You are not necessary, Izumi, because we're not going to be playing along with this 'Program!' _We're_ going to be resisting, and _you'd_ be an impediment. So go on. Shoo!"

Izumi gaped; her eyes wide and her mouth open, she reminded Kazuo of nothing so much as a freshly-caught fish. In a low, intense voice, she answered: "An _impediment_? And why do you think I'd be an impediment, you arrogant rich _brat_?"

This startled Kazuo behind his imperturbable façade; he paused, looking at Izumi carefully. He had never paid her much attention; she wasn't like the "delinquent" girls in their class, people like Mitsuko Souma and her clique, and had always made it clear she despised him and his followers.

However, it was a fair question. "Because we're going to be trying to bring this whole thing down. These guys have been with me for quite some time; you'd just get in the way."

That really set her off; even in the icy moonlight, he could see her face turn red with anger. Before she could rip into him, a rustle in the bushes had Kazuo whirling, aiming his MAC-10 submachine gun toward the noise.

"Boss--it's me! Don't shoot!" Kazuo lowered the gun as Mitsuru Numai came out, a pistol in his hand. "Are we all here?"

"I haven't seen Sho," Kazuo replied.

"No loss, between you and me. I never could stand him--his creepy crush on you gave me the cold shudders." Mitsuru shoved his pistol into his waistband after making sure it was on safety; like all students in the Greater East Asia Republic, he'd gone through basic military weapons familiarization. "So--what's the plan, boss? How're we going to make those bastards sorry they ever picked this class?"

"First off, we're going to get off this beach. Right now, we're standing out here, sitting ducks for anybody who's got a gun and wants to take a shot at us." As he moved toward the shelter of the nearby trees, his gang followed, as he knew they would. Much to his surprise, Izumi came along with them.

Once they were out of easy sight, Kazuo turned to Izumi. "Did you not hear me, earlier? We've important plans to make, plans that don't include you!"

"Don't include me?" Izumi's mouth twisted into a snarl. "Your thugs grabbed me and dragged me here. I'd say that means I'm included in whatever foul plans you have!"

"You despise us. You always have. You'd be a weak link--a person we can't trust." Kazuo grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around, pushing her away. "Go on. Get you gone."

Izumi whirled, and grabbed Kazuo by the front of his shirt, surprising him. His followers bristled; Mitsuru raised his pistol, only to be quelled by a gesture from Kazuo. "You _arrogant_--you--you--you _son of a bitch_! Do you think that our petty quarrels back in Shiroiwa matter _here_? This is the _Program,_ fool! It's designed to break down social links!"

Kazuo looked at her carefully, considering. He had to admit that she had a point, and one of his great strengths had always been a capacity for icy, emotionless analysis of any problem presented to him. "Very well. Convince me that we should let you come along."

Izumi looked right back at him, unafraid. That, in itself, told in her favor; she had to know why Hiroshi and Ryuhei had grabbed her, and what they had intended to do. "Well--for starters, if you're planning to resist this thing, you'll need a girl with you, to talk to other girls. Most of the girls in our class know what you and your friends are like, and wouldn't trust you as far as they could throw you."

Reluctantly, Kazuo nodded. His gang had a dark reputation; even many adults in Shiroiwa preferred to steer clear when they were on the prowl. _If you knew how much I've managed to restrain them from real excesses, Izumi_…he thought. Even with his guiding intelligence, his followers were, at seventh and last, thugs. While Mitsuko Souma and her crowd dabbled in petty crime--prostitution and minor blackmail schemes--his group was wresting control of Shiroiwa's streets from the local Yakuza. _You know, I wonder…could they have had something to do with us ending up here?_

However, that was neither here nor there. If they got off the island and back to civilization, there'd be time to find out how this had happened, and settle with the Yakuza if they'd done it. "A fair point, I must admit. So why would you want to help _us_? You've always despised us. How do we know that _you_ aren't playing--and planning to turn on us the second you can?"

Izumi looked astonished; this had clearly never occurred to her. "Me--_playing_?"

"Yes. You. _Playing_." Kazuo spoke slowly and clearly, as though he were addressing a half-wit. "Did you see what was out in front of the school, or did that happen after you left?"

"Mayumi Tendo--and Yoshio Akamatsu. She had a crossbow quarrel in the head--I couldn't see what had killed Yoshio."

"That's because he wasn't dead. Just knocked out cold. Yoshio was the one who shot her; I watched him do it. He climbed up on top of that porch and ambushed her as she came out." Kazuo raised one eyebrow in reluctant respect. "I'd never have believed it of him--not in a million years."

"So if _Yoshio_ could play--that means anybody could!" Izumi paled. "I--I see what you mean!" Her expression turned determined. "Even so, you still need me. If we meet girls, they're likelier to trust me than you."

"Am I to trust _you_ behind my back with a weapon?"

"As much as I trust _you_, which isn't that much. I don't even know what I have--your _friends _grabbed me before I could check my bag." She looked around, and at Kazuo's gesture, Hiroshi handed her the bag she'd been issued, still unopened.

At the sight of what she pulled out, Kazuo's eyes went very wide. "A pair of time bombs? How did they think you were going to use those?"

"How would I know? You're supposed to be such a genius; figure something out!"

"Oh, I shall. Come on--you're in the group. Let's find shelter for the night. Mitsuru, you take first watch; Ryuhei, you take second." Leaning closer to his male followers, Kazuo muttered: "Keep an eye on her, but _do not_ harm her without permission, unless she tries an attack on us!"

"Got you, Boss," they murmured, and turned to follow Kazuo into the sheltering woods.

END CHAPTER 01


	2. Chapter 2

Heads is Heads, Chapter 02

By Technomad

Izumi Kanai awoke, and for a few seconds, couldn't remember what had happened. _Why am I in this place? Where am I_--and then memory surged, and she remembered everything. The "class trip" that had turned into a nightmare; the deaths of Fumiyo and Yoshitoki, the horrible collars--and being grabbed and hauled away when she left the school by two of Kazuo Kiriyama's hoodlums.

She had fully expected to be raped and then killed. She knew more than enough about the Program, even without Yonemi Kamon's lip-licking references to rape, to be aware that sexual assault was quite common. Her brother had had a collection of Program DVDs--_will he keep those, when he finds out what happened to me? Will he buy the one I'm on and show it to those friends of his?_--and she'd seen more than enough of them to know.

Kazuo had not done what she expected and feared, though. Instead of either just killing her, or raping her and allowing his thuggish followers to rape her, he had quietly ordered her release. His casual dismissal of her had sparked the anger that had been building in her soul ever since she had awakened in that accursed classroom, particularly when he made it clear that he had plans, and that she couldn't contribute to them.

She had managed to convince him that he was wrong. He and his friends did need her, if only to convince any girls they met that their intentions, this time, were peaceful. She wasn't sure that would work--but she knew full well that allies, in the Program, were a godsend, and as long as she could keep Kazuo convinced that she was useful, she had a chance. She wasn't sure about his idea of resisting the Program and escaping, but she knew enough about Kazuo to know that he'd pulled off apparently miraculous stunts before.

As the sky turned light, she heard a harsh crackle. It was the loudspeaker system. Some of Kazuo's friends stirred, awakened by the noise; Kazuo was already up, sitting on watch, his submachine gun at the ready. She got up and went over to him. "Time for homeroom, it seems," she murmured. Kazuo raised an eyebrow. "Best get out your map of this island, and a pencil. They'll be making announcements, at dawn, noon and dusk. They tell us who died, and what areas are now off limits."

"I hadn't known that," Kazuo answered. "How did you know?"

"My brother. He's got a huge collection of Program DVDs." She shushed him as Yonemi Kamon's drawling, self-satisfied voice came over the speakers.

"Rise and shine, little warriors! What say we skip the formalities and get down to it?" A pause, then: "I know how pressed you all are for time, so I'll keep this brief. Please limit your…activities…to areas covered by more than one camera, if you can. Multiple angles make it that much easier to package the highlight reel for DVD. You understand?"

"All too well," muttered Izumi. One of the boys was about to talk, and she motioned him to silence.

"Right, now, on to the dead," gloated Kamon. "Yoshio Akamatsu, Boy #1. Tatsumichi Ooki, Boy #3. Boy #20, Kyoichi Motobuchi. Boy #21, Kazuhiko Yamamoto." A low chuckle echoed out, before he went on: "And as for the not-so-gentle sex…Girl #3, Megumi Etou. Girl #4, Sakura Ogawa. And Girl #14, Mayumi Tendo. A good pace, but not a real record-beater, yet. Still and all, the day's young and I have full confidence in you. Don't let me down, hmmm?"

"Don't let him down?" snarled Mitsuru. "Boss--when the time comes, I want some time alone with that slimebag!"

"You and me both," muttered Ryuhei.

"Shush! Get your pencils out, and mark your maps!" snapped Izumi. Much to her surprise, the boys nodded and did as she said. Kazuo caught her eye and nodded slightly, and she felt absurdly pleased. In her time with his gang, she had found that they did precisely what Kazuo Kiriyama told them to do, and she knew that keeping this sort of human material under such close control wasn't easy. The effortless way he did it impressed her despite herself.

"Moving on to restricted areas…I hope you have your pencils ready," Kamon continued. "From 0700, J-2. At 0900, F-1. Then, at 1100, H-8…bingo!" A chuckle. "Sorry, couldn't resist. Till next time!" The loudspeaker went off with a click.

Kazuo had been marking his map. "Right. We're good, at least for now. They've cut off most of the built-up area from eleven o'clock. That should flush some people out."

"Damn shame," muttered Hiroshi. "I wouldn't mind spending the night under cover, myself."

"You and me both," agreed Ryuhei, as Mitsuru nodded. "We're city boys; this wholesome outdoor life's for the birds."

"Don't knock it," Kazuo said quietly, as his followers subsided. "Indoors, it's easier for ill-wishers to sneak up close. This isn't your normal class trip, so don't go whining about comfort."

"What do we do now, boss?" That was Mitsuru. "I figure you've got a plan."

"Right now, we sit tight. We're here," as he pointed to his map, indicating the square designated I-2, "which is out of the way enough that we don't have to worry too much about the…ambitious…stumbling across us. Speaking of which, how are we found for weapons?"

"I got this pistol," said Mitsuru, holding up a Walther P-99. Kazuo nodded approvingly, as Izumi watched. Ryuhei held out an AK-47, and Kazuo looked it over carefully.

"I see our friends like their little jokes," murmured Kazuo. "Check this out." He held out the rifle, and Izumi could see that it had been drilled through the chamber; it could not be fired. With a disgusted snort, Ryuhei threw it away.

"Looks like all I have is this," muttered Hiroshi, shamefacedly holding out a paper fan. Kazuo just gave him a look, as if to say _Our friends do like their little jokes, don't they?_

"With the pistol, this submachine gun, and Izumi's time bombs, we should be able to see anybody off who wants to try conclusions with us," Kazuo stated flatly. "For now, we're going to hole up. We've got till afternoon before we need to worry about moving anywhere. Let the…ambitious…chase each other about."

Obedient as always, the hoodlums did as Kazuo instructed. Izumi settled down behind a bush, where she could see out but would be difficult to spot, and watched. Her stomach growled, and she opened her bag to find that she had a supply of bread, several bottles full of a commercial brand of water, and little else.

"Good idea," commented Kazuo. "Everybody, take some of your bread and eat it--wash it down with the water. Eat it slowly, so that you don't take more than you need to stave off hunger. We don't know how long this is going to last, and don't know whether or if we can get re-supplied."

"If we kill someone, that'll mean we can take their stuff," said Hiroki.

"True. However, for the moment, we're avoiding fighting if at all possible. If we get into fights, there's a chance we might lose--or win, but at the cost of wounds or even death. That doesn't fit in with the way I'm planning."

Obediently, the hoodlums opened their own bags, and tucked into the bread. Kazuo nibbled daintly at a piece, as well-mannered as if he were at tea with the Dictator instead of crouching in bushes with his classmates trying to kill him.

When they heard a rustling in the bushes, everybody froze, and those who had weapons drew them. Kazuo gestured for stillness as they waited. From behind a bush rose the well-coiffured face of Sho Tsukioka, the last member of the gang.

"Oh, are you all here, darlings?" he trilled. "I'm so sorry that I didn't get here sooner, but you know how it is. Nasty, dangerous people about everywhere you look! I never in all my days had such a time! So many pretty boys after me, and none for reasons I'd approve of!" He gave them a very obvious wink.

"Even so, you're late," answered Kazuo. "Get over here. Let's see what you've got."

"Oh, smoochylips, I thought you'd never ask!" carolled Sho, as he dropped his pack and ostentatiously began to undo his trousers. Kazuo's eyes went very cold, and Sho froze as Kazuo got to his feet, staring at him intently.

"This is the Program, Sho. This isn't the place for your stupid games, or for misunderstanding me! Do we understand each other?" Casually, Kazuo gestured with his MAC-10, and Sho froze, fear in his eyes. "I _meant_, show me what you were issued with for a weapon!"

Sho looked puzzled for a second. "Oh. Well, darling, I haven't even had the chance to look. I had that impossible Mitsuko Souma on my trail for a while--I spent the night in the town, and when I came out the next morning, she was practically on top of me!" A theatrical shudder. "Not only do I _not_ fly that way, but she didn't even have the taste to want me for _that_! She had this nasty sickle, and I could see blood on her clothes and the sickle's handle. I think she's already up on the scoreboard, if you know what I mean, ducks."

"How many times do I have to tell you, Sho? E-_nough_ with the faggy-ass nicknames and endearments! 'Boss' is 'boss,' end of sentence, full stop, _over and out_!" ground out Mitsuru. Izumi could see that this was a long-standing point of irritation between Sho and the other boys in Kazuo's gang; Sho was well-known for his over-the-top swishy ways, and Izumi knew more than enough about teenage boys to know that this would rankle with the other gang members. Idly, she wondered why Kazuo tolerated it.

At Kazuo's gesture, Sho opened his bag and began delving into it. "Let us see, my dear--some packages of that awful bread you find in the cheap stores, six bottles of spring water--if they could bother to provide us with spring water instead of tap water, why couldn't they give us something decent to eat?"

"Because they figure that for most of us, it doesn't matter, or won't, soon," Kazuo commented, as cool as though they were discussing a movie they'd seen. "Izumi!"

Startled, Izumi looked up. "You want something, boss?"

Kazuo gave her an imperceptible nod of approval at the way she addressed him. "You said you have a brother who follows the Program religiously." At her nod, he went on: "Tell me--what's the longest a Program has lasted?"

Izumi thought about it. "There was one once that lasted for over a week. That was an all-girls' school from somewhere or other in Shikoku, and they apparently all hid out at first. When the forbidden zones started coming in, though, they were flushed out, one at a time, and the threat of having all their collars exploded at once got them going." Reminded, she ran her finger under the metal collar around her neck that bound her to the Program. While it wasn't tight, it reminded her unpleasantly of a noose. "That one ended up in a scene called the Sisters' Slaughterhouse--nine or ten girls all going after each other at once. It's on the _Program Greatest Hits_ compilation DVD, as well as the regular Program DVD for that year."

As she spoke, the boys had found Sho's issued weapon. Sho looked comically disappointed. "A _two-shot_ derringer!" he lamented. Giving Kazuo a roguish look, he asked rhetorically: "Always the same--the prettiest boys get the best toys!" Sho held up the little gun. "And how am I expected to defend myself, darlings, with nothing but this 22-mm popgun?"

"Get the terminology straight, for starters," answered Kazuo. "That weapon is .22 _caliber_, not 22-millimeter." Sho looked puzzled. "If it were 22-millimeter in caliber, it'd be that wide across the barrels--each barrel would be 22 millimeters wide, and that would mean it was bigger than most shotguns."

"Oh, don't mind me!" Sho preened. "You know me--always bragging about my equipment!" Kazuo gave him a look, and he shut up.

"Right now, sit down, eat and drink--no more than you need to keep yourself from getting hunger pangs--and shut up. We'll move toward the evening, when the shadows are lengthening." Obediently, Sho sat down beside Izumi. She edged away slightly.

"Oh, don't mind me, sweetness. I'm perfectly trustworthy around girls. Like setting a carnivore to guard your garden, if you know what I mean." Izumi nodded, and forced herself to relax. It was still very strange, being in the middle of Kazuo Kiriyama's gang, and--apparently, at least--accepted as a member, even if only a probationary one.

Sho went on: "I do like sweet, sweet Kazuo's plan of letting the ambitious ones take each other out. That'll distract those horrid, nasty people at the school--did you see what that dreadful Kaemon was wearing? It gave me eye-burn! When we figure out how to escape, we won't want the ambitious ones along to ruin it, will we?"

Izumi stretched out, feeling sleepy; the bread and water, on an empty stomach, had had that effect on her. Before she could quite drift off, it occurred to her:

_How had Sho known about Kazuo's plan? By his own account, he'd been holed up in the town all the previous night!_ She nearly sat up and cried the question out aloud, but Sho was right there--with his derringer, and at that range, even a rank beginner could kill her. As she felt her eyelids getting heavy again, she made a mental note to keep a very, very close eye on Sho.

END CHAPTER 02


	3. Chapter 3

Heads is Heads--Chapter 03

As his gang--and Izumi Kanai--settled down for some more sleep, Kazuo Kiriyama stayed awake. His mind was buzzing with plans, and he knew he could think better without the others distracting him.

Izumi was a factor he hadn't planned on when he summoned his gang to the southernmost tip of Okishima Island, but she was turning out to be useful in unexpected ways. Her familiarity with the Program could prove to be an ace in the hole, or at least an advantage in figuring out just how to sabotage it and escape.

Keeping alert for strange noises, Kazuo devoted most of his attention to considering just how to escape. While he had never been to Okishima before, he knew from school and living in nearby Shiroiwa that the Seto Inland Sea was not large, and that the mainland of Honshu was in sight; he knew that he could swim the distance.

However, Kamon had told them that there were patrol boats guarding the island, and that the patrols would shoot to kill. While Kamon seemed to be an utterly despicable person, he had, as far as Kazuo knew, never lied to them. So, the patrol boats were a problem that had to be dealt with for a successful escape.

That led to the collars around their necks. Reflectively, Kazuo fingered the one that he wore. It seemed to have a locking mechanism, but he couldn't figure out how it might open, and he hesitated to experiment; Kamon, again, had told them that trying to remove the collars would set off the explosive charges in them. The collars apparently incorporated some sort of tracking device, which appeared to be monitored at the school building--where Kamon was.

It all seemed to come down to the school. Remove that, and the control the Program had over them would be, at the least, severely disrupted. The patrol boats would probably come in to investigate if something happened to the school, creating a window of opportunity for an escape attempt. Or, possibly, even taking over one of the boats and escaping on it.

Removing the school, though, would be a big, big challenge. Behind his expressionless façade, Kazuo felt a warm glow of pleasure. He liked real challenges, and his life had held too few of them. Most things came to him with effortless ease--music, art, schoolwork, even judo. He didn't know just why other people seemed to have such a hard time with things--all he often had to do was to look at a problem, and the solution came right to him, right then. However, this particular problem did seem to need some more analysis.

Turning, he considered his followers. Not the best, nor the brightest, but most of them were loyal to him, or at least, in enough awe of him that they obeyed. They were not terribly intelligent, but they had found that when they did as "Boss" commanded, they invariably came out ahead, while if they did things that he hadn't sanctioned or thought through, the results were much less sure to be good.

All of them were asleep--except Izumi. She was lying there with her eyes half-open. When their eyes met, she got up quietly and came over to him. He patted the log he was sitting on, and she sat down beside him, close but not indecorously so, automatically smoothing her skirt.

Leaning very close, she whispered: "Boss--I think Sho may be playing."

Another surprise. He had noted instantly that Sho seemed to know more about their plans than he'd have been able to gather if he'd only just arrived. It was interesting that Izumi had also noticed that. None of his hoodlums had!

"I know," Kazuo replied, in tones so low that nobody could have heard but Izumi. "He's always been good at sneaking and stalking. He follows boys he's interested in, but makes sure they don't know he's there. I think he may well have been hiding nearby last night, and seen what went on from the beginning."

"Groups, in the Program, have a tendency to turn on one another like the Kilkenny cats." Izumi explained, keeping her voice low so that the boys wouldn't hear. "All it takes, sometimes, is one thing going wrong and you have people who've been friends forever shooting one another."

"Sho knows that most of us detest his flamboyant ways. The others consistently underestimate his ruthlessness and will; they're hypnotized by the fact that he's not only gay, but so open about it. I think he does resent the fact that we don't swing that way, and sees this as an opportunity for some revenge."

"They would see him as rather like a girl," mused Izumi. "Speaking of girls--you notice that he mentioned Mitsuko Souma?" A ghost of a grin crossed her face. "If anybody's playing, I'd bet she is."

Kazuo thought about it, and decided quickly that Izumi was right. She would know more about the day-to-day dynamics among the girls in their school than any boy, simply by being a girl herself and being able to go where boys could not. He could also see that Mitsuko would be a very dangerous player; he had seen her use her sexual appeal to cloud men's minds and get her own way on many occasions. There had been rumors that she was involved in the death of a prominent professional boxer a few months previously. Kazuo didn't know if this was true, but he had noticed that Mitsuko had been very flush with cash at that time.

He turned his mind to Mitsuko's followers. Like his own gang, they tended to follow where Mitsuko led, but, again, like his own gang, each had her own individual personality, strengths and weaknesses. Hirono Shimizu was probably the more dangerous of the two girls; Yoshimi Yahagi struck Kazuo as more of a follower…a "weak sister," to use the locution his gang members used to describe boys who weren't up to their own standard of toughness. The irony of using such a phrase to describe a girl appealed to Kazuo's well-concealed sense of humor.

"Do you think she's linked up with those chums of hers?" he asked Izumi. "Or do you think she's playing a lone hand?"

Izumi thought about it, chewing her lower lip absently. "I think--I think she's on her own." She looked very pensive. "Hirono might want to link up with her, but Mitsuko's one love--the one person she cares about in this world--is Mitsuko Souma. If _I_ were teamed up with Mitsuko, I'd sleep with one eye open." She suddenly smiled slightly.

"How about Yoshimi?"

"Yoshimi's a follower. She's probably looking for that boy she loves--Yoji Kuramoto, I think. She originally fell in with Mitsuko mostly because Mitsuko's got a stronger personality." She gave Kazuo a long look. "You do know that Mitsuko pimps her girls out--basically, she expects them to screw men who've paid her for the privilege?" Izumi sighed, remembering. "I overheard Yoshimi once; she was crying in the girls' toilet about it. Apparently when Mitsuko found out she was a virgin, she charged some rich perv a lot of money to be the one to take her cherry."

"No wonder they call her 'Hardcore' Souma," mused Kazuo. "So if we meet her, I'll steer us clear if I can, but if we can't, I won't trust her an inch."

With that settled, Izumi went and lay down again, conserving her strength. Kazuo began thinking about who, among the boys, might be a real threat to his plans to resist and escape.

First on the list, for Kazuo, was Shogo Kawada. Most of the other boys in their class had been around for some time; enough time that he had a pretty good handle on their weaknesses, their strengths, and their personalities. Shogo, on the other hand, was an enigma. He was older than the others; it was said that he'd run into serious trouble, and had had to repeat a year of school. That, alone, set him apart; at their age, a year was like a decade to adults.

Kazuo tended to believe the wilder rumors--the rumors that said that Shogo Kawada had been in trouble with criminals. He had seen Shogo in the bathing facilities after gym class, and Kazuo, with his wide reading, knew what those round, puckered scars on the older boy's body meant, even if nobody else did. In the Greater East Asia Republic, just as in Japan of old, firearms were rare, and were almost all to be found in the hands of the police and military; civilian ownership of guns was prohibited very strictly, with heavy penalties for violators. Had it not been for the mandatory military training every school had to offer, as well as time spent examining the realistic gun models that some hobby shops offered, Kazuo would have had no experience whatsoever with guns.

So, Shogo could be a problem. At the same time, if they could recruit him, he'd be a very useful person--Kazuo had seen their class rankings, and while he stood at the top, Shogo was clearly not far behind. He was also very strong, and a good fighter. At one point, Ryuhei Sasagawa had tried bullying the big new boy the way he always did the mild-mannered giant Yoshio, and had been set down very, very hard_. If we run into Shogo, I'll try to recruit him--but I'll be very, very careful_, Kazuo decided.

With Shogo filed away, Kazuo went on to consider who else would be useful. Shinji Mimura was the next person who came to mind. Shinji, Kazuo knew, was also intelligent, and far more charismatic than Kazuo was; if he could be recruited, he'd be very useful in persuading newcomers to join them. Kazuo did not delude himself, ever; he knew that his classmates regarded him with some suspicion, and considered his followers hoodlums. Shinji, on the other hand, was charismatic and popular, and almost all the boys, at least, liked him. Quite a few of the girls also thought he was really attractive, and he had played on that, cutting quite a swathe through them. _Are any of the girls resentful enough to refuse to join up if he's with us?_ Kazuo made a mental note to ask Izumi.

That brought his mind back to Izumi. With her knowledge of girl gossip, she had already proven that she was useful. She knew things, just by being a girl, that none of his followers--or even he--knew. She also seemed to be fitting into his gang remarkably well. With a flash of amusement, he wondered how much better his gang would have worked if it had been co-ed from the beginning. What girls couldn't have brought to the table in fighting skills, they might have made up with clever insights--the sort of thing that was obvious to a girl, but that a boy wouldn't think of.

Looking up, Kazuo noticed that the sun was fairly high. Soon, it would be eleven o'clock. Off in the distance, he heard shots.

"Someone's getting ambitious," commented Mitsuru; he had awakened and was sitting up, wary as a deer in daylight. "I wonder if staying here is really such a good idea. We need to find more allies, boss."

"It's almost eleven," Kazuo answered. "After eleven, we'll move. The last forbidden zone will go into effect then."

When the watch he had been supplied with pointed up to eleven o'clock, Kazuo got up. With subdued groans, his gang members, and Izumi, got to their feet, rubbing themselves where they had sore spots from sleeping on the hard ground. Kazuo pointed northeast.

"The school's that way."

"Boss--the school's in a permanent danger zone! You want to get us blown up?"

Kazuo gave his followers a look. "No, Hiroshi. I just want to get close and see what kind of ideas I can come up with. To resist, we've got to take the school down." Satisfied, they trudged along as he led the way, with Izumi just behind him.

After a few minutes, they came out of the deeper growth into an open glade--and found themselves the witnesses to a ferocious fight. Izumi gasped: "Takako!"

The school's top track girl, Takako Chigusa, was having it out with Kazushi Niida. Kazuo had considered recruiting Kazushi for his gang, but had decided against it; something about him just seemed "off," and they didn't need a loose cannon.

From what Kazuo could see, he had been righter than he knew. Kazushi looked like he had lost it, big-time; his eyes were wild and his face was twisted in a manic smile, even as Takako launched herself at him in a desperate attack. Kazushi avoided her, circling around as he fumbled to reload a crossbow. Kazuo wondered if he'd been issued with it originally, or taken it from someone; he knew that Yoshio Akamatsu had had one, and Yoshio's death had been announced.

"Stop it! Leave her alone!" That was Izumi. At the sound of her voice, Kazushi looked up, his eyes widening as he saw who had come. Lunging away from Takako, he brought the crossbow to his shoulder and loosed a quarrel, then turned and ran, laughing insanely. Kazuo heard him yell: "It's the stone-cold killer Kazushi Niida show, coming to you live from Okishima Island! HAAAA!"

"Boss!" That was Mitsuru. "He got Ryuhei! Shoot him!" Sure enough, Kazushi's Parthian shot had struck home; Ryuhei Sasegawa was down with the quarrel sticking out of his shoulder, his face turning gray. Mitsuru and Sho knelt beside him, trying to make him comfortable as he writhed on the ground, his blood staining the grass.

"So--out of the frying pan, into the fire?" At that, Kazuo looked up; Takako was looking up at them. She'd been wounded herself; a quarrel was sticking out of the upper part of her right leg and she was bleeding, but she faced them, unafraid, even though her only weapon seemed to be a sharp screwdriver.

END Chapter Three


	4. Chapter 4

Heads is Heads, Chapter 04

by Technomad

Izumi gasped at the sight of Takako's wounds. As Takako swayed, her eyes going unfocussed, Izumi hissed: "Boss--may I?" She glanced at Kazuo, and at his nearly-imperceptible nod, she ran forward, steadying Takako as she sank to her knees.

Takako gave Izumi a bleary-eyed stare. "Never--never thought I'd see you--join up with that crowd," she murmured. Her eyelids fluttered. "Guess--guess the Program shows you what really _is_, under everybody's pretenses--doesn't it?"

"You hush! You're hurt--and so is Ryuhei!" As she spoke, Izumi worked quickly. Pulling up Takako's skirt, she saw the place where Kazushi's arrow had hit, and felt slightly sick. She gently felt the wound, steeling herself against Takako's gasp of pain.

"It doesn't seem to have hit any major arteries. She was very lucky--a few millimeters one way or another, and she'd likely have bled to death by now," observed Kazuo. Izumi hadn't noticed him, but he had come up behind her, and was observing her attempts to tend to her friend with his usual dispassionate air.

"How's Ryuhei?" asked Izumi, as she tore off her school jacket to try to make an improvised bandage.

"Shoulder wound. His right arm's out of commission, at least for now. I told Hiroshi and Sho how to rig him an arm-sling," answered Kazuo. To judge by his tone of voice, this was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary for him.

"Can we pull the quarrels out, Boss?"

Kazuo looked at it carefully. "I don't know. For that matter, I'm not sure but that these quarrels have barbed heads; pulling them out might result in greater damage than leaving them in."

"Why--why do you give a damn?" Takako whispered. "What am I--to you--other than 'Robo-bitch?' Why do you--care if--I live or die?" The effort of speaking so much seemed to have exhausted her momentarily; her eyelids fluttered shut.

"Why?" Kazuo looked thoughtful for a second. "We aren't playing the game. Kazushi, obviously, is--and Izumi, here, thinks that Mitsuko's likely to be playing as well. There are probably others--but we aren't among them." He leaned closer. "How about you? Were you playing?"

"Didn't--didn't get much choice. Ran--across that creep--tried to get me to strip--fought him, instead." Takako shuddered. "He has--a nunchaku--as well as--that damn crossbow." She squeezed her eyes shut. "He hit me--shot me--but I hurt him good!" The ghost of her old grin flitted across her face. "If you hadn't come--I'd have had his--wedding-tackle off!"

"I see," said Kazuo. He scanned the surrounding trees, reflexively looking for danger, while Izumi tended to Takako's wounds. She'd ripped the sleeves off her jacket, and bound up the places where Takako was bleeding as best she could.

"Boss--" this was Hiroshi, who had come over--"why didn't you shoot that bastard? You've got a _gun_! Hell, isn't that thing a _machine_ gun?"

Kazuo looked at Hiroshi as though Hiroshi had said something unusually stupid. "Because, Hiroshi, this gun is not terribly accurate at any distance, and eats up ammunition--and I've only got so much ammunition." He hefted the little MAC-10. "If Ryuhei's AK-47 had not been sabotaged, and I'd been carrying it, I might have tried a shot."

"Oh. Guess you know best, boss," said Hiroshi. Izumi suppressed a flash of irritation. _ Of course he knows best, you thickskulled moron! _she wanted to shout. The more she associated with Kazuo Kiriyama, the more thoroughly she respected his brains. How he put up with the louts who followed him puzzled her, but she was now very glad that he'd allowed her to join his group.

"Here. Let me help." Kazuo knelt down, took some cord out of his pockets, and soon had her clumsy bandages tied in place as neatly as though a paramedic had done it. "I think we're going to have to change our plans. There's a medical clinic marked on the maps, and it's not in a danger zone--yet, at least. We'll have to head there and see what we can lift--the locals didn't have much notice before they evacuated, from what I can see. There should be medical supplies there--medical implements, real bandages, antiseptics and antibiotics."

"You'll--help me?" Takako looked very surprised. "Why?"

"To spite the Program, of course." Kazuo turned away, as though the subject was of no more interest--which it probably wasn't, at least, not to him. He had made his decision, and that was that.

Izumi helped Takako up on to her feet, and they found that the wounded girl could stand and walk, but was rather shaky; she had lost more blood than it looked like, but most of it had soaked into the ground. Nearby, Hiroshi and Mitsuru were doing their best to help Ryuhei. Ryuhei could walk, but his arm was useless; he set his face grimly, clearly determined not to show weakness, particularly in front of girls. Izumi was not sure whether to be more amused or annoyed by his machismo.

Kazuo looked at his map. "The clinic's to the south and east of here. Come on. We'll have to keep our pace to the speed the slowest of us can handle. If you find yourself weakening, Takako, let me know." They set off, Takako leaning on Izumi but keeping up fairly well.

As they left, Izumi turned for a final look at the clearing, and felt her blood running cold. For a second, she was sure that she saw Mitsuko Souma standing in the trees on the opposite side of the clearing, watching them. She took another look, and decided that she was imagining things, because she couldn't see Mitsuko any more. Just the thought that Mitsuko was so close made her shiver.

She hadn't been exaggerating when she told Kazuo that the only person Mitsuko loved or cared about was Mitsuko Souma. In her judgement, Mitsuko would cheerfully sacrifice any or all of their classmates to be the one who walked off the island alive. During the years they had spent as classmates, Izumi had never seen Mitsuko show that she gave a damn for anybody else. She treated her girl-gang followers worse than an old-time _daimyo_ would have treated peasants. Izumi couldn't see why Hirono Shimizu, at least, bothered with following Mitsuko; Hirono was no weakling and didn't need to put up with being bullied and pimped out.

Izumi tried to remember the Program DVDs that her brother had owned. Her brother had been a fanatic for following the Program, and he had analyzed the qualities that went to make up a winner with his friends, online and in meatspace. She, as a girl, had not been invited to join the discussion, but their home was small enough that she couldn't help but overhear a good deal of it.

The qualities that seemed to make a Program participant a likely winner were varied; combat skills, of course, were useful, but not a deciding factor in and of themselves. More than anything else, a winner needed a single-mindedly ruthless attitude; a willingness to accept that the old rules were gone and that friends were a burden best done away with. That, Izumi knew, was a quality that Mitsuko Souma had, in spades.

Thinking about her brother and his Program DVDs made Izumi a little homesick. As she helped Takako along, she remembered sitting there, doing her homework like a good little girl, while her brother watched his DVDs. Then it struck her--something she should have remembered before.

"Boss?" At this, Kazuo turned to see what she wanted. She gestured for him to come closer; she was supporting Takako, and couldn't really just come to him. When he was close enough, she reached out and pulled him as close as she could, until their faces were nearly touching. As softly as she could, she breathed: "We're _wired for sound_! All of us are! It's in these damned collars!"

Kazuo nodded. Just as softly, he said: "Thanks. I hadn't considered that, but it makes sense. I'll pass the word on to the boys."

Just then, the loudspeakers crackled, and Kamon's voice echoed out. "High noon, little warriors, and time for the latest update from Command Central! You've been busy, but the pace has been just a little slow. Do try to pick it up, please--action sells advertising time, after all." A pause, then: "Since our last update, we've had a couple of deaths. Yoji Kuramoto, Boy #8, and sweet little Yoshimi Yahagi, Girl #21. No new restricted areas this time," Kamon chuckled, "I know how disappointed you must be. Tune in this evening, same channel, for more exciting updates in the world of the Program!"

_I wonder--did Yoji and Yoshimi do for each other, or did someone else take them both down?_ thought Izumi. The two dead students had been going together, despite belonging to very different social circles and having very different outlooks. She, personally, thought that Yoji only saw Yoshimi as a convenient lay, but she'd heard enough from Yoshimi chattering to her pals in the girls' locker room and washrooms to know that Yoshimi really cared about him.

They came out of the woods, to a high place overlooking the Inland Sea. The sun shone down brightly, dazzling Izumi slightly; she'd become used to the shade under the trees. In the distance, she could see what she thought had to be Shikoku. Closer in, a patrol boat was circling the island, making sure that no participant in the Program could escape. The thought made her angry. _We'll fool you--all of you! We'll escape_! she thought.

The fresh sea breeze felt very nice, and for a second, Izumi let herself just relax and enjoy it. Takako's soft groan as they moved forward recalled her to their current predicament, and she looked around uneasily, not liking being out in the open. In the woods, she and her companions were at least not easy to see, but out there, any ill-wishers--Mitsuko Souma, or others--could spot them from a distance and have time to come up with a plan to defeat them.

The clinic was in the middle of a small built-up area; not as big as the main village, which was now off-limits, but still more like what Izumi was used to than most of the island. Subconsciously, she was reassured by being among houses again, even though she knew, intellectually, that it was dangerous; houses were ideal places for players to lurk and set up ambushes.

At least Kazuo seemed well aware of the dangers. When they got to the edge of the buildings, he began giving orders. "Sho, Mitsuru, I want you to take turns going forward and seeing if there are any signs of people here. Signal us--you know the drill--if you see or hear anybody. If you give us the all-clear, we'll join you and then you go forward again, till we get to the clinic." Sho and Mitsuru nodded, and went forward, guns in hand.

At first, everything seemed dead quiet--the village was apparently completely deserted. Helping Takako along, Izumi shivered; she was used to having people around, and it seemed deeply unnatural to her, not to hear anybody moving around other than their own group, who were being as stealthy as burglars. She wondered if Kazuo's gang had done burglaries; they certainly seemed to have practice at keeping quiet and not being noticed.

At last, the clinic was in sight. It was on the southeastern corner of the village, with a good view of the Inland Sea. Mitsuru approached the door very cautiously, his pistol out and ready to fire in an instant. He slowly opened the door, peered in, turned, and gave the "All clear!" signal. Izumi helped Takako toward the clinic, while Hiroshi guided Ryuhei along. Both of the injured seemed to be dazed; their eyes were glazed and unfocussed, and they docilely let themselves be guided along.

Just as they got Ryuhei and Takako inside, everybody froze. Not far away, a gunshot echoed off the walls, followed by another, and another, and another. Kazuo whirled, bringing up his submachinegun.

"Mitsuru! Sho! Hiroshi! Get these two inside and put them to bed!" snapped Kazuo. "I'm going to see who's playing!" Not waiting to see if his orders had been obeyed, Kazuo slipped off down the street, heading for the sound of the shooting. Izumi came along; she had received no orders to do otherwise, and thought that Kazuo might need her.

In an alley between two houses, they came upon the source of the disturbance. Hirono Shimizu was hiding behind the corner of a house, exchanging gunshots with Kaori Minami, who was holed up behind someone's automobile. The car already had several bullet holes in it; neither girl, apparently, was a great shot.

Before she knew what she was doing, Izumi ran forward. "Stop it! Stop it! Stop shooting! Stop playing the game!" Both girls lowered their guns, staring at her in utter astonishment. "You're doing just what they want you to do!"

If nothing else, her audacious move had bought her a little time to try to reason with them. "What's got into you, Izumi?" snarled Hirono, her voice shaking with anger. "I didn't want this, any more than you did! She started it! What was I supposed to do?"

"Just--please stop. Lower the gun. We don't have to do this." Izumi spoke very gently, as though she were calming a frightened animal. While she'd had little to do with Mitsuko Souma's clique, she knew that Hirono Shimizu was probably the most reasonable of them.

"What's this 'we,' Izumi? You and the little voices in your head? You and your tapeworm?" Hirono was obviously still angry, but at least she was talking.

"There's a group of us. Takako's one of them--you know Takako. Kazuo Kiryama's trying to organize resistance."

"You've got Kiriyama?" Hirono's eyes opened wide. "Damn! Where is he?"

"I'm over here, Hirono. I've got my friends with me, and Takako, too--at the clinic building. Takako and Ryuhei are both hurt, and we're trying to patch them up." Kazuo's voice, as always, sounded calm and dispassionate. He stepped forward, holding his submachinegun down against his leg, looking as non-threatening as he could. "I seem to remember you took the Red Cross course in first aid, back in Shiroiwa?"

"I did." Hirono seemed to be calming down, but her eyes flickered to Kaori again and again, wary as a wild animal caught in the open. "You want me with you?"

"Yes."

"You're crazy--but good crazy, I think. I know where the clinic is." With that, Hirono turned and left, making sure to keep a building between herself and Kaori.

With Hirono gone, that left Kaori to deal with. Izumi looked at her carefully, and did not like what she saw. Kaori seemed to have gone 'round the bend; her eyes were unfocussed and she was drooling slightly.

"Come on, Kaori. Put the gun down. We're all your friends. Nobody wants to hurt you," said Izumi. "Let's all relax--we can chill out with some Junya music. You like that idea?" Izumi remembered that Kaori was absolutely nuts about Junya, and had his picture in a locket she always wore around her neck. Some of the other girls had teased her about it, but not as much as they did about her skin problem; unlike most of the girls in their class, poor Kaori had had endless problems with pimples.

At first, she thought she might be getting through. "Junya…" muttered Kaori. "Junya forgives me…Junya knows!" With that, she brought her pistol up and fired; Izumi ducked barely in time as the bullet zinged past overhead.

Before she could get away, Kaori began skipping up to her, babbling: "Girls--they just call me '_pizza face_!' Girls go away--girls just poke and _poke_ and _poke_!" By this time, she was just a couple of meters away from Izumi, who stared up in horror. There was no sanity in Kaori's eyes; she was drooling and bleeding from her mouth, and her face was distorted with some sort of tic that kept pulling one side of her mouth into an insane rictus.

_She's worse than I thought--there's no getting through to her!_ thought Izumi. _Merciful Buddha_--Kaori brought her automatic pistol up, aiming it; even though her hands were shaking so badly that she couldn't have hit anything much beyond four meters away, she was closer than that, more than close enough to make sure of a kill.

_Sorry, Boss_, thought Izumi, closing her eyes. _Guess you were right--guess I'm not much use to you after all_! A harsh rattle startled her, and her eyes snapped open, to see Kaori falling off to one side, bleeding from a dozen bullet holes at once.

As Kaori fell, someone else stepped out of the bushes, hands in the air. Izumi gasped. "Shuuya Nanahara! What are you doing here?"

End Chapter 04


	5. Chapter 5

Heads is Heads, Chapter 05

by Technomad

(Author's note: By now, the butterflies' wings are flapping, and things are going to start going very differently from the original story.)

__

Mitsuko Souma

Mitsuko Souma moved quietly through the underbrush. For a city-raised girl, she was good at not making noise; she thought, personally, that growing up the way she had explained it. When one is used to moving as silently as a mouse to avoid the… _attentions_…of one's stepfather, it becomes second nature, and her exploits as Shiroiwa's premiere girl delinquent had also provided useful training.

The main thing she had learned in her life was that she could trust absolutely nobody. Her father had had to leave suddenly--she thought he'd gotten into trouble with the government in some way, but she wasn't sure--and since then, life had been a Darwinian struggle. Who did not victimize, in her experience, was a victim, and once she had learned that lesson, she had set out to _not_ be a victim.

As she had grown older, she had developed skills that helped her enormously. She had a natural flair for acting parts, and a sharp intelligence that helped her figure out quickly just which act would work on which victim. While her school grades were indifferent at best, in the school of the streets, the only one she really cared about, she was at the top of her class.

Once she began developing curves, she had found that her looks were a wonderful asset in and of themselves. Most men were easily hypnotized, she had discovered to her delight, and when they thought that sex was in the offing, she could get them to do all sorts of things for her. Of course, when she wanted to, she could act the part of the sweet, innocent schoolgirl to perfection; she had examples in front of her in class every schoolday of her life, and people's expectations about girls her age did a lot of the work for her.

Even other girls could be taken in by her act. Megumi Etou, for instance. Mitsuko couldn't believe how easily she had lured Megumi in to her own destruction. All it had taken was some fake tears, tears she could turn on and off at will, and a cock-and-bull story. Megumi had swallowed the whole thing, hook, line and sinker. Mitsuko had always thought that Megumi was gullible, and with such complete proof, she now rather regretted not finding a way to turn that to her advantage back when they had been in school together, in Shiroiwa. There had been situations where she could have used an easily-conned gull…to hold on to stolen goods and keep them someplace unlikely to be searched, or to provide an alibi. Not to mention finding creative ways to relieve Megumi of the crushing weight of her allowance…Mitsuko believed that such monies were far better used for _important_ things, like pedicures for herself and her followers.

Ah, well--water over the bridge. Or was that "under the dam?" Mitsuko didn't know--and, frankly, didn't much care. Literature bored her, like most of her schoolwork other than math--she wanted action. Sitting around with her nose in a book, like that bookworm Kyoichi Motobuchi, drove her straight up a tree. She envied girls in other countries, where schooling, she had heard, was much less rigorous.

She had been watching the fight between Takako Chigusa and Kazushi Niida, planning to take the winner down. She had been paying very close attention back at the school, and she believed Yonemi Kamon when he said that only _one_ would be allowed to survive. She fully intended to be that one, and that meant that all the others had to die.

However, Kazuo Kiriyama and his gang had shown up, with--of all people--Izumi Kanai in tow. That, Mitsuko had to admit, had been quite unexpected. Izumi Kanai had always despised Kazuo's followers--Mitsuko had heard her commenting scathingly about "mindless thugs" in the girls' locker room or washroom more than once. Watching from her vantage-point among the trees, Mitsuko had been able to see that several of Kazuo's friends had had firearms, so the pistol she'd acquired after killing Yoshimi Yahagi and Yoji Kuramoto wouldn't give her a decisive advantage. One thing she had always been able to do was cut her losses--she had faded into the trees before anybody had seen her, and had gone looking for other targets.

Up ahead, she could see a lighthouse. She paused, and checked her map. It wasn't in a danger zone, and seemed to be standing out away from the surrounding brush. She thought that it might be a nice place to hole up; her shoes hadn't been meant for this sort of rough terrain, and, while she was in fine shape, her feet were beginning to hurt.

__

Kazushi Niida

Kazushi Niida held very still. His hands trembled as they held the crossbow, and his eyes flicked back and forth, back and forth, as his ears strained for the sound of anybody else moving around. He thought he'd eluded Kazuo's gang, but he wasn't sure, and he knew more than enough about Kazuo Kiriyama to know that if he were targeted by Kiriyama, it'd be curtains for him.

Inwardly, he raged at the bitch he'd been fighting. _Robo-bitch! All the time, even here--too damn stuck on herself to have any time for me!_ he cursed to himself. When he'd awakened, back in the school, to find that he was now in the Program, he had been hard-put to contain a swelling rush of delight. To him, the Program seemed to promise the fulfillment of every fantasy he'd ever had--revenge on the stuck-up bitches who turned up their noses at him, revenge on the popular boys who had their pick of the girls, and finally being able to really and truly _deal with_ the annoying losers--people like Yoshio Akamatsu and Toshinori Oda--that infested his life.

Things hadn't worked out as planned. Oh, he'd taken out Yoshio. It'd been a very easy kill--the damn fool had managed to knock himself out right in front of the school, with his crossbow by his side, almost as though he were inviting someone to kill him--but, after that, his luck seemed to have fled.

Coming across Takako--Robo-bitch--had seemed like a huge stroke of luck, but the bitch had proven to be a lot harder to intimidate than he had anticipated. Hey--he had the crossbow aimed at her, all she had was a screwdriver or icepick or something like that--didn't that mean that he got his own way and she had to do what he said? Instead of complying with his orders and stripping down, Robo-bitch had fought back, and had dinged him up! Him! The star of the _Stone-Cold Killer Kazushi Niida Show_! Even with an arrow in her thigh--that damn crossbow wasn't terribly accurate--she'd fought back, and if Kazuo Kiriyama's gang hadn't shown up, she might have even won!

However, Kazuo had shown up--with Izumi Kanai apparently having joined up with him--and even Stone-Cold Killer Kazushi Niida knew when he was outgunned and outnumbered. At least he thought he'd put a quarrel into one of them, but he now regretted that, as well as the quarrels he'd wasted on Robo-bitch and Yoshio; he was running a little short on them and didn't know where there were any more. Without the crossbow, all he had was a stupid pair of nunchaku.

So--enough fooling around. From now on, he'd quit trying to get some sex, and concentrate on killing. Once he'd won and was off the island, he could worry about getting laid--he'd heard that knowing they were with a Program winner made some women hot as monkeys. Not to mention--if someone else came on him here while he was getting laid, he'd be as easy a target as Yoshio had been.

Decision made, he decided it was time to be on the move. He checked his map, and saw that the area he was in was nowhere near a danger zone, so he could move about freely. Lowering the crossbow, he went north, careful to make as little noise as he could. It wouldn't do, after all, for the star of the _Stone-Cold Killer Kazushi Niida_ _Show_ to be taken down by some random inferior.

__

Mitsuko Souma

Mitsuko peered cautiously through the bushes at the lighthouse. She couldn't see anybody moving around at the moment, but she somehow _knew_ that the place wasn't deserted. If nothing else, it was just too perfect for someone--or several someones--to hole up in. While the weather had been fine, Mitsuko knew that rain could come at any time--this _was_ Japan.

Sure enough, in a few minutes she saw Chisato Matsui at the top of the lighthouse, on the observation deck. She was obviously on watch, and Mitsuko could see that she had what looked like a submachinegun. She turned, and Mitsuko heard her call down the stairs to someone.

_So--there are people here_, thought Mitsuko. On one level, she was rather disappointed, but she had known that the chances of finding such a perfect hiding place not being used were slim. She wondered who was there; knowing who she was dealing with would make planning a great deal easier.

If there were boys around, her job would be all but done; she knew that she could make almost any male bark and drool by turning on the old sex appeal, or else her "little girl lost" act. Even her teachers had not been immune--she'd avoided flunking more than one test by suddenly looking all big-eyed and cute and helpless.

Girls, on the other hand, were much less susceptible. She couldn't count on their hormones getting in the way of their thought processes, the way she could with males, and her "cute, helpless female" act was much less effective as well. However, girls were by no means impossible to deal with. She hadn't been the leader of the "girl delinquent" faction in her class for nothing; she'd learned how to manipulate females as well as males.

The door in the bottom of the lighthouse opened, and Yukio Utsumi came out. She had a pan in her hand, and dumped out what had to be the leavings of a meal. At the sight, Mitsuko's stomach rumbled with hunger. She hadn't touched the bread or water in the packs she and Megumi had been issued, and, although she was used to missing meals, the intense action she had been through since awakening in that damned classroom was taking its toll.

Stuffing her pistol (well, Yoji's, actually, but hers now) into her shirt, Mitsuko stepped out of the bushes. "Yukio? Is that you? Oh, merciful Buddha!" She staggered forward, looking as shaken as she could. "Another girl, at long last!" As Yukio came forward, Mitsuko let herself fall into the other girl's arms, tearing up. "I've been so _scared_!" She started stammering about guys who wanted to rape her before killing her, and Yukio led her inside, murmuring soothingly.

Keeping her face averted, Mitsuko permitted herself a small smile through her false tears. _Come into our parlor, Madame Spider, said the flies_…she thought.

__

Kazushi Niida

A rustle in the bushes alerted Kazushi to the presence of someone else. He froze, looking around intently. More rustling, and he saw Mizuho Inada walking by, following a nearby path. From his vantage point, Kazushi could see her fairly well, but she didn't seem to notice him. She was ambling along, a big silver pistol in one hand, holding a conversation with someone only she could see.

_She's lost it--big-time!_ Kazushi had always privately considered Mizuho Inada to be missing a few tiles from her roof. He'd heard her chattering to her friends about some imaginary god or other; but from what he could catch, the strain of the Program had driven her clear off the edge, straight into la-la land.

However, just being insane did not make her any less dangerous. In some ways, it made her more dangerous--her behavior would be impossible to predict for anybody not familiar with whatever twists her mind had taken. Even so, her attention was on her conversation, not on her surroundings, and Kazushi found he had little trouble slipping through the bushes to the path she was on, creeping up behind her.

She turned, and faced him. Instead of being fearful, or even bringing the gun up to aim, she smiled. "Ah--are you sent by the Exalted Ones? Are you a warrior of the Light? I am Prexia Dikianne Mizuho, last survivor of the holy warrior tribe of the Dikianne!"

Her insanity had created an opportunity, and Kazushi was quick to take advantage. His crossbow was at his shoulder, and he sent a quarrel straight into the last Dikianne's forehead. He'd been aiming for her heart, but the crossbow wasn't terribly accurate. Nonetheless, he did what he had set out to do--Mizuho's eyes rolled up and she slumped to the ground, as dead as Yoshio.

Kazushi retrieved the pistol, looking at it admiringly. "Much many thanks, O last warrior of the Dikianne! I'll be sure to put this lovely lady--a .44 AutoMag, no less!--to good use!" He chuckled as he picked up her bag. "And I do believe I see a hundred rounds of ammunition to fit this beauty! I think that I'm a far better custodian of this collector's piece than you could ever be!"

Then, in the distance, he heard shouting. "Please--join us! We know you don't want to do this! Join us!" It sounded very like Yukiko Kitano's voice, but distorted by a loudhailer. Curious, he went to see what they were up to.

__

Mitsuko Souma

When Yukio led her in, Mitsuko looked around quickly. She was in what seemed to be a kitchen meant for the people who normally manned the lighthouse, and there were other girls around. No boys, at least none that she could see. That would make things harder, but Mitsuko had conned women many times. Never for such high stakes, though…

Haruka Tanzawa, at the stove, looked at Yukio with wide eyes. "What's _she_ doing here?" she asked.

"Be quiet," snapped Yukio. "I think she's had a bad time of it. She was saying something about boys who wanted to rape her."

"Oh. Oh, dear! I'm sorry! Mitsuko--Mitsuko, would you like some food, dear?" Haruka came over, offering a plate of stew. "I'm sorry it isn't better, but there wasn't much to work with here."

"It's all right with me," piped up Yuka Nakagawa, from her seat over in the corner. "Got the Yuka seal of approval!" With that, she returned to what she'd been doing--she was apparently trying to cheer up Yuko Sakaki up. Yuko looked like she'd been through the mill--she had a thousand-yard stare, and an expression on her face like she was staring into Hell.

Muttering a quick "Thanks!" Mitsuko tucked into the stew. Chisato still wasn't around, so she couldn't get her hands on that lovely submachinegun, and she was hungry. She wondered, as she spooned in stew, whether she would do better to try to get these girls to work with her--she had always done well as leader of a gang of girls.

She took a long look around. Yuko Sakaki she dismissed instantly. The girl had always struck Mitsuko as being nearly insane, and the Program had plainly been a good deal more than her frail grip on reality could stand. The others, though--she gave them careful consideration. They might, just _might,_ be useful--but, of course, she'd have to get shed of them in the end. In the end, there could be only one--and she was determined that that "one" be Mitsuko Souma.

END Chapter 05


	6. Chapter 6

Heads is Heads, Chapter 06

by Technomad

Kazuo's eyes narrowed as he took in the sight of Shuuya Nanahara. Like all of them, except Sho, he looked rather bedraggled. That made sense, though. Sleeping in the open, in their school uniforms, was not the way to make the Greater East Asia Republic's "best-dressed" list, after all. Beside him, Izumi was looking at Kaori Minami's bullet-riddled body, and clearly having a little trouble keeping herself from throwing up. Unlike Kazuo and his followers, she wasn't used to violence.

"Me? I could ask what you're doing here!" Kazuo was not surprised by the answer; he had always thought Shuuya impossibly naïve. Back at the school, he had been one who dared to protest the Program, even in the face of armed soldiers. While Kazuo had not been happy at all to find that his class had been selected, he knew that openly defying Kamon was futile. Instead, he had opted to wait his time. In his experience, everybody dropped their guard, or got overconfident, sooner or later…and then they were his prey.

Visibly mastering herself, Izumi set her fists on her hips, scowling at Shuuya. "Well, we're obviously enjoying a lovely vacation! 'Come to beautiful Okishima Island, the pearl of the Seto Inland Sea!' We're teaming up, to resist the Program…_blockhead_!" Then her eyes narrowed dangerously. "And you still haven't answered the question of just what _you're _doing, skulking around here." She looked at his waistband, through which a revolver protruded. "And here I was hoping that you were just happy to see me," she mock-pouted. Then the anger returned: "Are you…_playing_?"

Shuuya's eyes went very wide, reminding Kazuo of the anime and manga that so many people in the Republic loved. "Playing? Me? Never! Not in a million years!" His face went red with anger. "You saw what I did--back at the school--didn't you?"

Kazuo nodded. Shuuya hadn't been _quite_ as defiant and rebellious as his late friend Yoshitoki Kuninobu, but he had come very close to sharing Yoshitoki's fate. Of course, that didn't mean that Shuuya hadn't decided, afterwards, to come to terms with the Program, and play to win. However, such a decision was utterly out of character. While they had never been friends, they had been in the same class for years, and Kazuo had always considered Shuuya an idealistic fool. He was surprised that Shuuya had lasted so long without being hauled away by the political police; the only explanation that made sense was that he'd never really come to their attention.

Deciding that Shuuya was highly unlikely to be playing, Kazuo nodded. "I'll accept that you aren't playing. That settled, the question remains--why are you _here_, instead of somewhere else?"

Shuuya looked worried. "It's Noriko--Noriko Nakagawa. She and I hooked up with each other soon after we left the school, and we've been together ever since. Well, she's feeling feverish from that wound of hers, and I decided to bring her here, to the clinic."

"Have you had any--encounters?" asked Izumi. Her eyes had gone wide and shiny at Shuuya's explanation, which amused Kazuo behind his emotionless façade.

Shuuya looked haunted for a second. "Yeah--a couple. We ran into Tatsumichi Ooki. _He_ was playing." Tears appeared in his eyes. "I swear it was an accident! I wasn't trying to kill him!"

_You damn fool_, thought Kazuo. He hadn't known Tatsumichi Ooki well; the boy was a recent transfer student. However, he was also big and strong, and struck Kazuo as a formidable opponent. Taking him down, if he was actively playing, was nothing to be ashamed of, _unless_ you were an idealistic fool.

His opinion of Shuuya didn't matter at the moment. "You mentioned a couple of encounters." Kazuo's voice was utterly calm, and it seemed to soothe Shuuya down. "Who was the other one?"

"We found--were found by--Kyoichi Motobuchi. He tried to shoot us." Shuuya pointed to the revolver he was carrying. "This is--was--his pistol."

"So you shot him first, did you?"

"No. I didn't have a gun. All I had was an Army knife, and Noriko just got a toy boomerang."

"A toy boomerang," said Kazuo, consideringly. "They _do_ love their little jokes, don't they? One of these days, I hope to show them how much and how _deeply_ I appreciate their humor." Raising one eyebrow questioningly, he went on: "So you say that you took down a man with a pistol, with just an Army knife and a wounded girl to look out for?"

"No. Shogo shot him. Blew his gun arm off first, and when he wouldn't stop, Shogo blasted a hole right through him with his shotgun." Remembering, Shuuya turned a delicate shade of green. Izumi also looked rather ill.

"Shogo? As in 'Shogo _Kawada_?' _That_ Shogo?" Kazuo's eyes narrowed, and he raised his MAC-10 slightly. "You didn't mention him. Where is he? Have you teamed with him?"

"We were together for a while. He didn't want to come to the clinic." Shuuya looked at the ground. "I asked him--begged him--but he didn't want to."

"Man has a right to change his mind, doesn't he?" came a new voice. Kazuo whirled, to find himself staring at Shogo Kawada. The older boy was cradling a semi-conscious Noriko Nakagawa in one arm, and hefting a shotgun in the other.

Shogo cracked a wry grin. "Shuuya--of all the times to tell your life story, this has got to be one of the most ill-chosen in history."

"SHOGO!"

"And stop _yelling_."

A few minutes later, they were back at the clinic. Noriko, Ryuhei and Takako were tucked into beds, with Hirono Shimizu watching over them.

Shogo, Shuuya and Kazuo were in the clinic kitchen. Shogo had found some rice and a Bunsen burner; he was busily cooking up some rice gruel. "Makes a change from that awful government bread," he commented.

Izumi came in. "All the patients are sleeping. Good thing your dad's a doctor, Shogo. You knew how to get those damned quarrels out of Takako and Ryuhei without doing more damage."

Shogo looked pleased, although he tried to hide it. "Picked up a lot, working as Dad's scrub-nurse for years. We were running a free clinic in a poor part of Kobe, and had to patch up people after all sorts of accidents." He gave Kazuo a long, level look. "Or run-ins with hoodlums."

Kazuo refused to be offended. "You say you _were_ running a free clinic? And in Kobe?" He cocked his head to one side. "So how did you end up in Shiroiwa? And where is your dad now?"

"Dad's dead. He got in Dutch with the government. Didn't like it when my class was chosen." At this, Izumi suddenly looked at him more closely.

"So _that's_ how I know you!" she gasped. "The different haircut fooled me! You were in last year's Program! You _won_--you set a record for a fast win!"

Shogo nodded, his eyes focussed elsewhere, somewhere that they couldn't see. Behind him, Shogo could hear gasps of awe from Hiroshi and Mitsuru; they had come in and were listening quietly, having been chased out of the sickroom by Hirono.

Shogo quirked a mirthless grin. "Ah--my fame precedes me, I see."

"My brother follows the Program religiously. He was absolutely over the moon about your performance. He was raving about it for days." Izumi's expression suddenly changed; a shadow seemed to pass over her face. "I daresay you have a different perspective."

"Different perspective," mused Shogo. "You might just call it that." He looked haunted. "Just for starters, don't _ever_ call it winning. It's far from that. In the Program, you do what you have to do. I did things I'll never forget, much as I might like to."

"And you landed in the next class to participate?" said Mitsuru. "Bum-_mer_! Isn't there some way you can--oh, I don't know--appeal?" He shook his head at his own stupidity. "No--the whole _point_ is pure random chance, isn't it?"

"I see you were listening when Kamon explained the ground rules to us," commented Kazuo. Shogo's story explained a lot about the burly transfer student. Those scars _were_ bullet wounds--but he hadn't taken them in a confrontation with criminals, after all.

Having a real live Program veteran on their side was a godsend, Kazuo decided. His followers--and Izumi, now--were loyal, but beyond street brawling, they lacked combat experience. At the same time, Kazuo knew that the only way to "win" was to be the last one standing, which meant that Shogo had to have killed, and killed repeatedly. If he could kill his classmates, could he be trusted to cooperate with kids he barely knew? It wasn't like he'd been Mr. Popular since his arrival in Shiroiwa--most people had steered clear of him, intimidated by his gruff manner and scarred face.

Kazuo decided that he'd keep a close, watchful eye on Shogo Kawada.

Some time later, they were all resting. The rice gruel had been much appreciated, and even the wounded had taken some. It was a wonderful change from the low-quality bread they had been supplied with.

Kazuo looked around. Mitsuru and Hiroshi were asleep; the strain of the Program had told on them. Sho was in the other room, with Shogo and Shuuya, tending the wounded. At the moment, Kazuo was alone with Izumi.

This was a wonderful opportunity. "Izumi?"

Izumi had been sitting, staring into space, lost in thought. She looked up. "Yes, boss? What can I do for you?"

"Come here." Curiosity all over her face, Izumi came closer. When she was close enough, he gestured, and she leaned down. "Tell me," Kazuo murmured, "about Shogo's win in the Program. You say your brother was very impressed?" As Izumi drew breath to reply, Kazuo warned her: "Not too loud! He's not far away. I want to know what happened, and I don't necessarily want him knowing that I asked."

Izumi nodded, comprehending instantly. Again, Kazuo regretted that he'd never thought of recruiting girls for his gang. Izumi, at least, was quite a bit smarter than his hoodlums. While Kazuo was justly confident in his own intelligence, he had never thought that he was the only one who could come up with good plans, and having someone available who knew things that only females would know would have served him in good stead on several occasions.

In a voice just as low as Kazuo's, Izumi began: "Shogo was one of the biggest killers in any Program, boss. He killed--let me see--fifteen, all by himself." She quirked a bitter smile. "The commentator was very impressed; he said he'd never seen such a fine showing in all his years watching the Program."

"You said 'all by himself.' He was operating alone?"

"He was looking for his girlfriend, apparently. From what I remember, she saw him take a kid down early on, freaked out, and ran." Izumi looked pensive, as she searched her memories for what she had overheard. "He found her, eventually. Ended up killing her."

"She was gunning for him?" Kazuo was impressed. Someone who could do such a thing was dangerous--and a valuable ally to have, _if_ he could be trusted.

"No. It had come down to Shogo, his girlfriend, another boy, and another girl. The other boy had Shogo's girlfriend, and was holding her hostage at pistol-point. He tricked the other boy and shot him, but then his girlfriend picked up the pistol he'd dropped, and Shogo shot her. He _then_ figured out that she'd seen the other girl, coming up behind Shogo to shoot him. They shot each other--but Shogo was a better shot, or had a better pistol."

"Sounds like a natural for _The Program--Greatest Hits_," commented Kazuo. It explained Shogo's reluctance to get close to anybody in Shiroiwa.

Outside, the loudspeakers crackled warningly, " Five p.m., little warriors! Now for your latest update from Command Central!" Kazuo made a shushing motion with his hand, cocking an ear to listen carefully. "I know that it's difficult, but could you try to pick up the pace, here? Since our last update, we've only had three deaths. Girl #1, Mizuho Inada. Girl #6, Yukiko Kitano. Girl #7, Yumiko Kusaka. Do please try to do better, won't you?" A pause, during which the sound of Kamon slurping something could be heard over the loudspeaker system. "Aaah, that's better! Nothing like a drop of something nice to drink, is there?" He chuckled. "I do hope you're conserving your water as best you can; there's a well, but there are no guarantees that it'll not end up off-limits. Not this time, though. As of now, D-5 is a danger zone. At 2300 hours, G-9 will become a danger zone. Keep listening for more updates from…Command Central!"

Kazuo pulled out his map. "As I thought. We're in G-9. I hope we can have our wounded fit to travel by then."

Shogo came out. "I heard that last bit. Yeah, by that time, they should be able to move around, at least under their own power. Neither of them was hit anyplace really dangerous, and, barring the unexpected, they should be good-to-go." He looked reminiscent. "Back when I was my dad's scrub-nurse…I never called it wrong. I somehow just knew when a patient would die, or get better. Even when things looked really bad." He gave them a quizzical look. "If I hadn't been sucked into the Program, I imagine I'd have ended up in medical school. Oh, my 'people skills' are a bit lacking--as someone used to tell me, you have to think from the heart sometimes, and I'm not good at that--but as a diagnostician, I had a natural gift. If I hadn't gone to med school, it'd have broken my father's heart."

END Chapter 06


	7. Chapter 7

Heads is Heads, Chapter 07

by Technomad

__

Kazushi Niida

Kazushi Niida looked around. From the observation platform he was on, he could see most of the island. The sun shone brightly, and the Seto Inland Sea sparkled. With the sea breeze blowing, it was a pleasant place to be.

Until you looked at the floor. Lying there, their clothes scattered around their bodies, were Yumiko Kusako and Yukiko Kitano. Unlike Robo-bitch…_damn her_…they had submitted meekly when he pulled out his gun. It hadn't been as much fun as he had hoped it would be, though. Their sobs and cries for mercy had bothered him--him, the star of the _Stone-Cold Killer Takashi Niida Show_! Who did they think they were, anyway? After raping both girls, he had shot them; this was the Program, and only one player could survive. They had been surprised when he started shooting, begging for their lives. Their naivete had amused and amazed him.

The sun was heading toward the West, setting over the distant hills of Honshu. Kazushi squinted; he thought he could make out Shiroiwa…_so close, and yet so far_!

He noticed the girls' issue bags were piled in a corner, and went over to investigate. They hadn't touched their rations, so he added those to the rations he was carrying--he'd taken Yoshio Akamatsu's and Mayumi Tendo's food and water already. He knew that in the Program, staying fed and watered was vital to winning, and he fully intended to win. The star of the _Stone-Cold Killer Kazushi Niida Show_ had to win, or what was the point of it all, anyway?

One of the girls' issue weapon--if it could be called that--was a dartboard with darts. Kazushi cast that aside with a snarled curse on the Program's sense of humor; while the .44 AutoMag was a fine weapon, he had found that it kicked like a mule, and he had been hoping for a more standard pistol.

The second bag, though, proved to have a prize worth the taking. Kazushi hefted the pair of grenades he found, an insane smile twisting his face. _With these_, he thought, _I can take people out without having to show myself_! As he stowed the grenades in his own issue bag, he heard the loudspeaker crackle in the distance.

__

Mitsuko Souma

Mitsuko Souma shook herself, and came fully awake. She had always had what she'd heard called an "internal clock;" if she wanted to be awake at a particular time, she was. After eating, she had settled down for a nap, which had reassured the other girls who'd claimed the lighthouse; _after all_, their reasoning went_, if she's willing to trust us enough to go to sleep with us around, she can't be up to anything--can she_?

She could. She had always observed those around her closely; it was a habit she'd picked up early on, and it had proven useful many times. Again and again, she had managed to avoid trouble, for herself and for her followers, by keeping a sharp weather-eye on the people they were dealing with. Years of running on the rough side of Shiroiwa had made her a shrewd judge of character, and she had known these girls for years, although they had never been friends--they had always been rather afraid of her and her girl-delinquent chums, and she, in her turn, had been contemptuous of them and their willingness to obey rules.

She had figured out, rather quickly, just how to deal with this situation, but the time hadn't been right, so she had stretched out in the bedroom for a nap. In the Program, sleep was important--sooner or later, without it, even the toughest person's judgement would start going fuzzy, and that was a guarantee of doom.

Now she was the only person awake, other than whoever was on guard. The other girls were asleep, stretched out on the couches that were scattered through the main room. Mitsuko smiled to herself, and hefted her sickle. She had hoped to be issued with a gun, but the sickle had served her well so far; she had found that it worked fine on her first kill, when she had taken down Megumi Etou.

For this, the sickle was better, if anything, than a gun. She had a pistol, and was glad of it, but the sickle, unlike any firearm, was _silent_. If she had only had a gun, there'd have been a firefight for sure, and, being badly outnumbered, she'd almost certainly have come off the loser.

Stepping close to her first victim, she looked down, feeling a slight smile lifting the corners of her mouth. Yuko Sakaki was lying there, snoring slightly, her face creased in a slight frown. To sever her spine and cut her throat was the work of a second; the sickle was razor-sharp, its blade the best steel on the market. Yuko died silently, just as Megumi Etou had; Mitsuko stepped aside to let her life's blood pour out onto the floor, instead of all over her clothes. She didn't much care about her uniform, but didn't like the idea of getting blood all over herself when she didn't know when, or whether, she'd be able to change. Blood stuck to clothing and stank terribly.

On to the next. Yuka Nakagawa was tossing and turning, and when the sickle went in, it wasn't quite as clean and quick as it had been with Yuko; Yuka gasped and gurgled, trying to scream and finding it impossible with blood flooding her lungs from a severed jugular and windpipe. Standing as clear of the blood as she could, Mitsuko held Yuka down until she quit thrashing and lay still, her eyes wide and glittering in the dim light.

"Yuka? Is that you? Is something wrong?" That was Haruka Tanizawa; she was stirring sleepily. "Are you all right?"

"Never better. Just a bad dream," whispered Mitsuko, counting on the fact that she was whispering to disguise the fact that she wasn't Yuka. "Go back to sleep. Morning will be here shortly, and we all need our rest."

"Good idea. G'night, Yuka," mumbled Haruka, already half-asleep. Mitsuko waited, still and patient, until she heard nothing but regular deep breathing. She had broken into residences before, and she knew the sounds of deep sleep. Sometimes, when she had been in someone's home looking for whatever she could lift that was salable, she felt like an old-time _ninja_--a _kunoichi_, to use the correct term for a female ninja. She rather thought that if she had been born in the old times, she might have made a fine _kunoichi_.

However, she was what she was, and she was not one to repine over the impossible. While she had taken down two of her targets, that left four, and there were still many ways for things to go badly pear-shaped. Three of them were in the room, and would be easy kills; so far, no alarm had been raised, and the two she had killed already had died as silently as she could have wished. The last of them--Yukio Utsumi--would be more difficult; she was up on the observation deck at the top of the lighthouse, awake and alert, with that Uzi submachinegun under her arm.

Mitsuko Souma wasn't Shiroiwa's most dangerous girl delinquent for nothing, though. She had already figured out just how she was going to deal with Yukio--or with whoever had been left on watch. She had an hour or so before Yukio would expect to be relieved, and that was more than enough time to do what she had to do. She wanted, very much, to win this fucking game--to walk off the island and go home. Even though her home wasn't much, it was hers, and it beat the Program any way she looked at it.

Since time was wasting, and, as far as she could tell, everybody but her and Yukio was deeply asleep, Mitsuko moved on to her next target. Chisato Matsui was lying on her side, clutching the pillow her head rested on, with her neck stretched out, almost as though she was asking for the blade. Mitsuko stood over her, gauging just where to put the sickle, and then rammed it into the soft spot where the back of Chisato's neck met the back of her head, pithing her instantly. She jerked convulsively, and Mitsuko could smell it as her sphincters relaxed--an odor like an old-fashioned outhouse was in the air.

Pulling out her sickle, Mitsuko slipped across the room as quickly as she could, before the stink became enough to rouse anybody; she didn't know these girls well enough to know, for sure, which ones were light sleepers and which ones could sleep through anything. Standing by Satomi Noda, Mitsuko slashed her throat in one economical move, holding her hand over the other girl's mouth and immobilizing her until she quit struggling and lay still.

__

Kazushi Niida

After darkness had fallen, Kazushi Niida left the observation platform. It had a fine view all around it by daylight, but by night, he couldn't see anybody coming near, and he knew all too well how vulnerable it was. Even though he had stayed below the level of the outer railings, someone could have seen him, and be creeping up, planning to take him out. Even without the iron logic of the Program, the girls he'd killed had had friends, and some of them might have had ideas about avenging their deaths.

Once he was back in the shelter of the trees, he relaxed slightly; anybody moving toward him would almost certainly have to make a lot of noise, and he'd hear them in time to do something about it. It wasn't the same as his familiar streets in Shiroiwa, but it'd have to do. Once he'd attained the stardom that was rightfully his, he promised himself, he'd never, ever go near nature again!

Thinking about his most recent triumph, he smiled triumphantly to himself. It had been so pathetically easy! Yukiko and Yumiko really thought that they could stir up a rebellion against the Program, and had welcomed him when he showed up. He had wanted both bitches for quite some time, and having them at last had been sweet indeed.

The looks of horror on their faces when he pulled out the AutoMag and ordered them both to strip were priceless. They had pleaded, begged, cajoled, wept--but none of it had done any good. For some reason, the actual act hadn't been as much fun as he had thought it would be. However, he had no prior experience, and thought that it could just be that he needed more practice to get really good. Afterwards, they had lain there, sobbing and holding hands, not even caring enough to look up as he cocked the AutoMag and blew their brains all over the floor of the observation platform.

_Serves them right for being fools,_ Kazushi concluded. _Too bad it hadn't been Robo-bitch up there…but her time will come_, he promised himself. Stone-Cold Killer Kazushi Niida had plans for her.

Up ahead a little way, he heard voices, and went very still, listening hard. After a few minutes, he had the speakers identified. Yuichiro Takiguchi's voice was unmistakable--he was one of the few boys in their class whose voice hadn't finished changing; that cracked tenor was unmistakable. And where he was, Tadakatsu Hatagami wouldn't be far away--and sure enough, there he was, answering some stupid _otaku_-type question from Yuichiro.

After a few minutes' worth of very careful movement, making as little noise as he could, Kazushi could see his two classmates. They were seated, side by side, on a log, talking in what they fondly imagined were low voices. Perhaps in Shiroiwa, with all the ruckus of a Japanese urban night around them, their voices would have been too low to pick out from the background racket, but out here, they were fairly easy to hear.

__

Mitsuko Souma

Haruka Tanizawa was deeply asleep. _Who'd have thought that she snored_? mused Mitsuko. For a few seconds, she stood there, looking down at the sleeping girl. She almost regretted what she had to do, but she knew that she had no choice. Even if she repented, which was not her style at all, the minute Yukio came downstairs to find out why she hadn't been relieved, she'd see the blood all over and know what had happened. Mitsuko didn't fancy her chances against an aroused and aware Yukio Utsumi. She had a gun, but Yukio had a submachinegun, and at the first sign of what had happened, she'd probably spray Mitsuko down on general principles.

So--on with the game! Mitsuko slashed down with her sickle, a quick, vicious cut that severed Haruka's spine instantly. The next cut, a second later, slashed her windpipe and the big arteries in her neck. Haruka probably never knew what had hit her; her eyes didn't even open and apart from one quick convulsion, she didn't even move. Mitsuko took her wrist, and couldn't find a pulse, so she knew that Haruka was dead. The only one left in the lighthouse, other than her, was Yukio, standing at the top of the tower, unaware of the horror unfolding below her feet.

__

Won't you step into our parlor, Madame Spider, said the flies?

It's the prettiest little parlor that ever met your eyes!

Mitsuko quirked a moment's smile at the thought. She had always seen herself as a lethal spider, crouching in the middle of a web made up of, first, her girl gang, then her classmates, and finally, the underside of Shiroiwa. She was instantly aware of any twitch on her web, and she was quick to come up with a response.

However, this was not the time for silly reminiscing. Yukio was still up there, and--Mitsuko glanced at her watch; the Program's directors had thoughtfully equipped each student with a glow-in-the-dark model, replacing the ones they had worn before they were taken--she'd be down the stairs in less than an hour.

_No reason to waste that time_, reasoned Mitsuko. She began gathering the dead girls' bags and belongings, putting them in one place and consolidating them as far as she could. There were several pistols, along with ammunition, which she appropriated, and the girls had been conserving their issue bread and water, so she took those as well; she didn't know whether she'd be able to find any more. Time was marching on, and the other participants in the Program were hungry, too.

When she had finished, she sat down in a place where the door to the stairway up to the top of the lighthouse would cover her when it was opened, and settled in to wait for Yukio. She looked over the pistols she had acquired, and decided to stick with the Government Model .45 she had taken when she killed Yoji and Yoshimi. It was reliable, hard-hitting, and reasonably accurate, at least at this range.

__

Kazushi Niida

From his hidden vantage-point, Kazushi watched Yuichiro and Tadakatsu. They seemed to have one pistol, but didn't seem to particularly be alert…a fatal error, in an environment as lethal as the Program. To watch them, they thought that the night was no more dangerous than it would have been in a Shiroiwa park.

_Idiots_, thought Kazushi disgustedly. _Killing_ them _will be a favor to the genome_! He considered several ideas, before deciding on the one that he would follow.

When both his targets had their backs to him, he burst from the bushes, screaming "Stone-Cold Killer Kazushi Niida strikes again! _YAAA-HOOO_!" He ran toward them, all-out, firing as he came. The big AutoMag bucked in his hand as he pulled the trigger, again and again.

Tadakatsu fell quickly, one whole side of his head blown into pink mist--the AutoMag was a very hard-hitting pistol. Yuichiro slumped down, a spreading red stain on the right side of his school jacket. Confident in his triumph, Kazushi stood over them, raising his hands to the skies and screaming his victory aloud.

Suddenly, he felt as though someone had hit him in the side with a baseball bat--and then hit him again. Spinning around, trying to find out what had happened, he saw Yuichiro sitting up slightly, resting his hands, which held the butt of the pistol he and his friend had shared, on a log, as he thumbed the hammer back and pulled the trigger again. This time, it felt as though he'd been kicked in the breastbone by a mule, and he fell backwards, into darkness…as the _Stone-Cold Killer Kazushi Niida Show_ was cancelled due to lack of sponsorship, lousy ratings and an overacted, over-the-top performance by its star.

__

Mitsuko Souma

Right on schedule, Mitsuko heard Yukio coming down the stairs, humming to herself. Mitsuko parked herself behind the door, and waited for it to open, taking the safety off her automatic.

Unsuspectingly, Yukio opened the door and came into the main room. It took her a second to take in what had happened. When it sank in, she gasped: "How--who?" She whirled, just in time to see Mitsuko aiming at her. Mitsuko fired once, and Yukio collapsed, her face a mangled ruin, dead before she hit the floor.

Mitsuko stooped and picked up the submachinegun. If she hadn't wanted it so badly, she would have left before Yukio came down--but in the Program, this much firepower was a huge advantage. She took one last look around the room, at the huge spatters of blood on the floor and furniture, and the limp forms of the girls who had foolishly trusted her.

"Darlings," she purred, "this is a game--and in games, I always play to win. There can only be one winner here, and that winner will be me."

END Chapter 07


	8. Chapter 8

Heads is Heads, Chapter 08

by Technomad

As eleven o'clock neared, Izumi went back into the room where the wounded were resting. Noriko was sitting up, looking fairly chipper for a girl with a flesh-wound in her lower leg, talking quietly to Shuuya.

"Time's getting short, you two," she said, more gently than she had planned to. "Can you walk, Noriko?"

Noriko nodded. "My fever broke a while ago. My leg's a little stiff, but I think I can walk. I ran from the school on it, after all." She gave Izumi a haggard grin. "One thing the Program does is teach you just how much more you can do than you thought you could."

Izumi thought about it, and had to agree. Before the Program, she would never, in a thousand years, have seen herself as part of Kazuo Kiriyama's gang. Now, she was not only a member, but she seemed to be implicitly trusted. It was a strange feeling, but she found she liked it a lot.

Takako Chigusa was lying on the next bed, catching some sleep. For a while, the flesh around her wound had looked red and angry, and been very warm to the touch. Takako had told them that, as far as she knew, she wasn't allergic to any antibiotics, so Shogo had injected her with a "cocktail" that he said would put paid to almost any normal infection. "If that clown had to shoot her, I just wish he hadn't done it through her clothes," he had grumbled. "When clothing gets into a wound, it can fester. I'd like to debride the wound and make sure that all the foreign matter is out, but we don't have time or the facilities to do it right."

When Izumi touched her shoulder, Takako's eyes came open. "Hi, Izumi," she mumbled. "I feel better. Is it time to travel again?" At Izumi's nod, Takako went on, "I never noticed--Shogo sure has a nice voice, doesn't he? Deep and sexy--like a tiger's purr!"

Izumi shook her head in rueful amusement. Even here, in the Program--in an environment designed to tear away all but raw survival instinct--teenagers were still teenagers. She could see that Shogo was attractive, particularly with that dark past--but she had her eyes on another guy. _As long as you keep your claws off Kazuo, we'll get along famously, dear_, she thought to herself.

For a few seconds, she allowed herself some delicious fantasies--of being the girl to pierce Kazuo Kiriyama's icy façade, to melt through and warm him up. _That would be an accomplishment worth bragging about_, she thought. Most guys were easy; all a smart girl needed to do was to show some interest, and they'd all but jump through hoops. Not Kazuo Kiriyama! That cool, self-possessed manner, combined with looks like a male model_--yum_! It made her feel all shivery inside.

Izumi shook herself, angry at having given in to silly schoolgirl fantasies. _First, let's get off this island, and out of the Program, and then, we shall see what we shall see_, she promised herself. She couldn't see going back to Shiroiwa--escaping the Program was almost certainly a serious crime in and of itself--so, for better or worse, her fate was tied in with the others'. _If_ they made it to the mainland--Honshu or Shikoku--they'd be outlaws, hunted criminals. And if she had to be a criminal, she could think of few better people to be partnered with than Kazuo Kiriyama. Some of his hoodlums, as they warmed up to her as a fellow-member of the gang, had reminisced to her about their exploits under Kazuo's leadership.

_If he hadn't been sucked into the Program, he'd have made a legendary Yakuza leader_, she thought. Ryuhei had told her about the times they had faced off with the local Yakuza--and come out on top!

Reminded of Ryuhei's existence, she went over to his bed; he lay behind a screen they had put up to give the girls a little privacy. He was lying there, very still, and she put her hand on his forehead. It was cool to the touch--too cool! Her heart in her throat, she pulled back the covers, feeling his neck for a pulse the way Shogo had shown her. No pulse! "Shogo! Come here!" she shouted. "Something's wrong with Ryuhei!"

Shogo rushed in; he'd been dozing in the outside room, to be near if he was needed. "Shit!" Pushing Izumi aside, he began working, first laying his head on Ryuhei's chest to listen for a heartbeat, then pushing on his breastbone, again and again, pausing to clamp his lips over Ryuhei's mouth in a horrible parody of a kiss, to inflate the other boy's lungs. After five or six repetitions of this, he stopped, feeling for a pulse.

"Flashlight! Now!" snapped Shogo. Wordlessly, Izumi held out one of the flashlights they had been issued with, and Shogo peeled back one of Ryuhei's eyelids, shining the light in. He leaned close, narrowing his eyes against the unaccustomed glare--they had been working by moonlight as much as possible, to try to conserve the flashlights' batteries--and whatever he saw didn't please him. Standing up with a sigh, he pulled the sheet up over Ryuhei's face. "He's gone," Shogo muttered. "I'd have bet _anything_ he'd be all right--first time I've ever been wrong!"

The rumpus had alerted the others, who had come crowding in. "What happened?" Kazuo asked, taking charge instantly.

"Ryuhei's dead, boss." Izumi looked down, ashamed at having failed. She had felt responsible for the wounded, and losing one was like having let Kazuo down, even though he had said nothing about putting her in any particular position over them.

Stepping forward, Kazuo pulled the sheet down, and gestured for Izumi to hand him the flashlight. He examined Ryuhei's body carefully. "I see that he hasn't been dead long--there's no livor, and he's not stiff yet. He's even still warm. Who was in here before you, Izumi?"

"Sho was in here, puttering around," said Noriko. She and Shuuya had come to see what all the fuss was about; she stared at Ryuhei's corpse with wide eyes, tears running down her cheeks. Izumi wondered if she was an utter hypocrite--she had had no time for Ryuhei when he was alive--or a genuinely good person who mourned the death even of such as Ryuhei Sasagawa, just because he was a fellow human being and classmate who hadn't deserved to be in the Program any more than she had.

"So he was…" muttered Kazuo. He turned his lizard stare on Sho, who was standing among the others, looking conspicuously innocent. "What were you doing, Sho?"

"Oh, I was just seeing that everything was all right, dearheart," Sho answered, his usual effeminate mannerisms seeming oddly out-of-place in this darkened place, with Ryuhei Sasagawa's unquiet ghost not far away. "You know me--I can't stand to see anything out of order!"

"Indeed," Kazuo murmured. "Did you see that anything was wrong with Ryuhei?"

Izumi thought that Sho looked very shifty for a second, before he recovered his self-possession. "Oh, Kazuo darling, I did peek in on him, but he seemed to be sleeping so peacefully, I just couldn't bring myself to disturb him. Did I do something wrong, love?"

"No," answered Kazuo, after giving Sho a long, considering look. "No, I think you did just what you were supposed to do." He turned, visibly dismissing the subject. "Come on--eleven o'clock's getting closer all the time! We'll just leave Ryuhei. The Program can't harm him any more, and we can't do him any good." He led the way out, with Takako and Noriko limping along behind him, supported by Shogo and Shuuya. Behind them, Sho was between Hiroki and Mitsuru, who looked shocked and a little bit lost at the passing of their old comrade.

Izumi managed to get close to Takako, who was clearly rather enjoying a good excuse to lean on burly, muscular Shogo Kawada. In a very low undertone, she muttered: "Keep an eye on Sho; I think he's playing!"

Shogo's eyes opened wide, then he nodded. Beside him, Takako set her face grimly, and gave Izumi a conspiratorial wink, woman-to-woman. They knew that they understood each other, and neither of them proposed to trust Sho Tsukioka an inch.

Once they were outside, the night air felt good after the rather stifling atmosphere inside the clinic, and Ryuhei's ghost didn't seem quite so close. Izumi threw her head back, drinking in the beautiful moonlight. Above them, the stars glittered down, indifferent to their troubles, the Program, and the Greater East Asia Republic, infinitely far away and remote.

She looked out over the moonlit Seto Inland Sea, toward the distant mainland, wondering if any of the lights she saw were from homes where someone was watching the Program. _I wonder what the commentators are saying about us? _she thought_. Are we a hit_? Then motion where there shouldn't have been motion caught her attention.

"Boss--there's someone else here!" she hissed. Kazuo's eyes narrowed as he looked where she pointed, down one of the settlement's streets.

"Sure enough, there is," Kazuo murmured. He drew his MAC-10. "Is it just some lost soul--or is it a player?"

"There only seems to be one. There are quite a few girls unaccounted for, at the last 'roll call,'" Izumi answered. "Want to go and see who it might be?"

Kazuo gave her a long, long look, and she squirmed under that expressionless stare. "Remember what happened with Kaori? If I hadn't been close to hand, she'd've canceled your birth certificate for you." Shamed, Izumi lowered her head. She owed Kazuo Kiriyama her life, and she hoped to find an opportunity to repay him. He could have just let Kaori shoot her--it would have made shooting Kaori in her turn much easier, not having to worry about missing Izumi.

Kazuo hissed: "Take cover! Someone's out there!" At his command, everybody ducked into shadows or behind things. In seconds, the street looked deserted. Crouched behind a trailer, Izumi peered down the street.

There was someone coming. He was moving fast, but staying very quiet--it was clearly a guy, from the way he moved. He got up the street, and paused for a second, as though he could sense Kazuo's group all around him. Before he could go on, Kazuo's voice rang out, calm as always: "Don't go any farther. There's several of us and we have guns. Are you playing?"

"I knew you were there all along," came the answer. Izumi recognized the voice, and her heart leaped. It was Hiroki Sugimura! "I can tell where each and every one of you is."

"How is that?" Kazuo sounded, at most, mildly interested, as though he were discussing a film he wasn't sure he wanted to go see. Coming out of the shadows, he had his MAC-10 down by his side, but Izumi knew that he could bring it up to firing position in less than a second.

"Remember how they gave some of us 'surprises?' Well--my surprise turned out to be _surprisingly_ useful!" Hiroki held out an electronic device. "It's a tracker. It tracks people who're wearing these damned collars. I've been looking for a few people ever since they let us out of the school--I lost track of Takako, she took off much too fast--and this thing helps me know where people are."

"Come out, everyone. I don't think he's playing." The others gathered in the street, and Takako gasped when she saw Hiroki. She threw herself into her friend's arms, and Izumi could hear muffled "missed you," and other sounds, along with happy weeping. Shogo watched them with a wry smile playing around his lips.

_You greedy girl_, thought Izumi. _As if Shogo wasn't enough_…Then Takako unwound herself from Hiroki, and seemed to remember her manners. "Hiroki, I want you to meet my new guy. Shogo Kawada, this is Hiroki Sugimura. Hiroki, Shogo."

"We _do_ know each other," Shogo drawled, his Kobe street-boy accent thickening slightly.

"I don't think you've ever been really introduced, though. Shogo, Hiroki's one of my best friends in the world. We've known each other forever." Her eyes welled with tears. "I'm so glad he's alive!"

"And I'm glad you're all right, too, Takako. It would have broken my heart if you'd died. That said--have you seen Kayoko Kotohiki?" Hiroki looked very worried. "I knew you could look out for yourself, but I won't rest easy till I've seen that she's all right."

"They haven't called her name on 'roll call' yet, Hiroki," Izumi pointed out. "So we know she's alive."

"And as long as I know she's alive, I've got to try to find her." Izumi's eyes went wide. _So that was the way the wind blew, was it? _Personally, she thought Kayoko Kotohiki was about as bland as overcooked rice, but if Hiroki wanted her, more power to him!

"We're resisting the Program, Hiroki," Kazuo pointed out. "If we can bring the Program down, that'll be the best guarantee of her safety. Otherwise--'only one wins,' after all."

"If you think you can bring the Program down, good luck to you. In the meantime, since you say she isn't around here, and I can see all of you both in meatspace and on this screen--" he held up the tracker--"I've got to be on my way."

"Boss--can we spare him a gun?" This was Mitsuru Numai, who, along with Hiroki and Sho, had kept back and let Kazuo do the talking. "I mean--all he's got is that detector, and that silly stick he was carrying."

"Remember? I'm a kung-fu practitioner. This 'stick,' in my hands, is one very effective weapon in its own right, and I can use it to help me leap over obstacles. I do thank you for worrying about me, but you'd better keep your guns. I'm a lousy shot anyway. Besides--" he suddenly gave them a grin that made Izumi's knees go a little weak--"with just this, anybody who is playing is likely to underestimate me."

"You're the best judge of your own skills, Hiroki. Good luck. We'd best start moving--it's 10:45, and this area goes danger zone in fifteen minutes." Kazuo turned and headed down the street, and the rest of his group followed. Izumi noticed that Hiroshi and Mitsuru were on either side of Sho; apparently they still didn't trust him.

Takako threw herself into Hiroki's arms, before tearing herself loose with a muffled "Be safe!" Shogo watched them with his usual wry expression, waiting patiently until Takako turned and took his arm, letting him lead her down the street. Izumi followed, helping Shuuya support Noriko; Noriko could walk, but her leg had stiffened up and she did need help to keep up.

After a few minutes, they were well out of sector G-9, with ten minutes to spare before it became dangerous. Izumi sighed; she had enjoyed having a roof over her head, and wasn't looking forward to the next time it rained. She knew it would rain--this was Japan, after all.

Finding some sheltering trees, they settled down to wait out the rest of the night. Izumi dozed for a bit, but came awake when she heard the warning crackle that told of the loudspeakers coming on.

"It's the witching hour, little warriors, and how glad I am that you've justified my confidence in you!" Kamon's voice echoed out across Okishima. "Since our last update, there's been a great upsurge in activity, and I couldn't be more pleased or proud!"

Soft growls came from several of Izumi's traveling companions. "If he wants to have something to be proud of, why doesn't he put on a collar and come out to play?" That sounded like Mitsuru, and while the others were shushing him, Izumi nodded, agreeing with every word. Kamon was in the schoolhouse, snug as a bug in a rug, while she and her surviving classmates huddled in the open, at the mercy of the elements. _At least it wasn't winter_, she thought, but it wasn't high summer either, and it got cold at night.

"Now, on to the dead!" Kamon sounded like he thought this would be a jolly treat for his listeners. "First off, we have Boy #10, Ryuhei Sasagawa. Boy #16, Kazushi Niida. And Boy #18, Tadakatsu Hakagami. I was wondering when the death list was going to stop being all girls!" A crackle of paper. "However, the fair sex has suffered heavy losses, starting with Girl #2, Yukio Utsumi. Girl #6, Yukiko Kitano. Girl #7, Yumiko Kusaka. Girl #8, Yuko Sakaki. Girl #12, Haruka Tanizawa. Girl #16, Yuka Nakagawa. Girl #17, Satomi Noda. And Girl #19, Chisato Matsui. A real eye-popping pace has been set--can you keep it up?"

"I hope not," muttered somebody. Several other voices shushed him.

"Moving right along," Kamon proclaimed, "we come to the new danger zones. We've got F-7 kicking in at 1 AM, and G-3 at 3 AM. That's all for now, but keep listening for the latest updates from…Command Central!" The loudspeakers went silent.

Kazuo studied his map by the light of the moon. "Good. None of the danger zones are anywhere near here. Listen, people," he continued, as everybody gathered around to listen, "I want to head here," pointing to one particular spot on the map. Izumi could see that it was the square that held the Farming Association building. She nodded, understanding that Kazuo didn't want to give their unseen hearers any more information about his plans than he had to. Kazuo turned and headed northwest, and the others followed him.

END Chapter 08


	9. Chapter 9

Heads is Heads, Chapter 09

by Technomad

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Toshinori Oda

Normally, Toshinori Oda was ashamed of his small size. Compared to the other boys--_big, vulgar hulks that they were_--he looked even younger than he was. Here and now, though, he was very glad that he wasn't any bigger than he was. His size meant that he could hide in places that the others wouldn't be as likely to check.

He knew--he just _knew_--that he'd be the one to emerge victorious. It made sense, didn't it? The Program was all about the survival of the fittest, and he was so superior in so many ways, he _had to_ be the survivor. Was he not the son of one of the richest men in their prefecture, and second heir to Oda Foods, one of the biggest produce companies in the Greater East Asia Republic? Was he not already one of the top young violinists in the country, with a spot at a top conservatory awaiting him once he graduated from this impossibly vulgar school? Such a superior person was not meant to be taken down by inferiors!

However, he had to acknowledge that it wouldn't be easy. Instead of a weapon, his pack had held a surprise--a bulletproof vest. He had never quite believed all the hype about such things, but it fit just fine, so he had it on under his school uniform jacket. He rather thought that, once he had prevailed and returned home, he'd keep it as a souvenir of a time when his superior nature had not been universally acknowledged.

While the vest promised to serve him well, it was no substitute for a real offensive weapon. While searching through the houses in the settlement, he had come upon a baseball bat, and had promptly appropriated it. His life was worth far more, after all, than some vulgar person's property rights, and Kamon had _said_ that they were free to use what they could find. _If you want to complain_, Toshinori told the vague image of the bat's owner in his head, _go to Kamon_! He smiled at the thought of what sort of reception such a complaint would get. Would Kamon throw a knife into the complainer's forehead, as he had done with Fumiyo Fujiyoshi for whispering in "class," or would he shoot, as he had done with Yoshitoki Kuninobu or Noriko Nakagawa?

This was not the time for daydreaming. The Program was still on, and Toshinori was hiding in the woods. He had heard shooting from a short distance away, and wondered who had been shooting at whom. It had sounded like two different guns; one much louder than the other.

After a while, curiosity overcame his caution, and he moved slowly through the brush, heading toward where he thought the shooting had come from. Even if someone was there, he felt that he could deal with the situation; his classmates consistently underestimated him, after all. Despite his great skill with the violin, they preferred Shuuya Nanahara's tuneless screeching--rock "music," they called it. Toshinori had considered ratting him out to the political police, but had reluctantly decided against it; while he despised his vulgar classmates, he knew that they could easily make his life miserable if they found out that he had betrayed one of them to the authorities.

And so, he had had to sit there, overlooked by the girls, who preferred muscular throwbacks to cave-man days like Shinji Mimura to someone who was clearly superior, and treated with casual contempt by the boys, who valued sports prowess over musical talent. While he hadn't been _pleased_, exactly, to find that their class had been selected to be in the Program, he had been happy at the thought that so many vulgar barbarians were shortly going to get exactly what they deserved. And--who knew? He might just be the one to give it to them! Nothing like evening old scores, as his father would say after defeating a business rival or quashing some vulgar neighbor.

Coming to a clearing, Toshinori cautiously peered through the leaves of a bush. The clearing was bathed in moonlight, and he could see very clearly, while staying safely wrapped in shadows. In the middle of the clearing two bodies were sprawled; the bloodstains on them looked black in the moonlight. Beside them, a small figure could be seen, sitting hunched over, with one hand on its side.

For a second, Toshinori couldn't figure out who it was. Then it hit him--this was Yuichiro Takiguchi! Toshinori's wide mouth twisted into an unlovely grin--the sort of expression he avoided around his classmates. Even without a smile, with his wide, thick-lipped mouth and bulging eyes, his nickname was "Froggy" or "Frog-boy," and he didn't want to give the vulgarians more reasons to hang such unbecoming names on him.

__

Of all the wonderful luck, he thought, _to find the one person in our class that I'm likeliest to be able to overpower_! Even with his baseball bat, Toshinori was realistic enough to know that up against the likes of Hiroki Sugimura or Shogo Kawada, he didn't stand much of a chance. But against Yuichiro, Toshinori knew that he was fairly safe--and Yuichiro looked like he was wounded, too! Better and better!

Toshinori considered several approaches. He didn't know whether or not Yuichiro had a gun, but, from the fact that there were two corpses or severely wounded people with him in the clearing, Toshinori figured that the chances of Yuichiro packing heat were pretty good. While his bulletproof vest was a wonderful ace-in-the-hole, it didn't cover every inch of his body; Toshinori didn't want to get a bullet through, say, his knee. The thought of lying there, crippled, in pain, wondering who would come to finish him off, or whether the area he was in would go "danger-zone" and his collar would explode around his neck, made him shudder.

So, the subtle approach would work best. Trying to look as innocent as possible, Toshinori stepped from behind the bushes. "Yuichiro? It's me--Toshinori! You remember me, don't you?" He walked forward, his hands out and empty--he had slipped the baseball bat down the back of his jacket. He could still reach it in a hurry, but he figured that seeming to be unarmed would get Yuichiro to trust him more easily.

Yuichiro whirled, his eyes going wide. "Toshinori? Man, it's good to see you! For a second, I thought you were playing!" He hefted a revolver, and Toshinori felt a surge of almost physical lust to possess it himself. "Are you okay? I took a bullet, but it just grazed my ribs and knocked me down. I was pretty lucky--poor Tadakatsu wasn't!" His eyes welled with tears, silvery in the pale moonlight.

"So that's Tadakatsu?" By this time, Toshinori had come closer, and he could see that it was, indeed, Tadakatsu Hatagami. It looked like he'd taken a bullet right to the head; part of his head was missing, and he was lying in a pool of blood. "Who's the other one?"

"That's Kazushi Niida. He came running out of the bushes, screaming something about being a stone-cold killer, and shooting as he came. He got Tadakatsu, and grazed me--but I nailed him good!"

"So you did," Toshinori had to admit. Kazushi Niida was lying there on his back, a surprised expression frozen on his face, with several large holes in him; the biggest one was right in the center of his breastbone. "I didn't know you were such a good shot!"

"I'm not," Yuichiro admitted, his head low. "I just got lucky."

__

Well, with me around, your luck has just taken a turn for the worse, dear vulgar otaku_ classmate_, thought Toshinori. As befitted a superior person, he held anime and manga in utter contempt; vulgar amusements fit only for vulgar minds. An obsession with such trivialities was like hanging a big sign around one's neck announcing _I Am Vulgar_!

Vulgar or no, he still had the pistol, and while Toshinori wanted it, he didn't want to fight for it. Sitting down on the log beside Yuichiro, Toshinori began sliding the baseball bat out of the bottom of his jacket, holding it down low where Yuichiro couldn't see it. He had begun forming a plan.

Yuichiro didn't seem to notice what he was doing; he had lost a good deal of blood, and seemed to be on the verge of passing out. Toshinori watched him patiently, awaiting his chance. Finally, some time after the bat was free and ready for use, he saw his opening; Yuichiro's eyes flicked shut and his head slumped down on his chest.

In one swift motion, Toshinori was on his feet, swinging the bat at Yuichiro's head. He connected, with a sickening noise like a melon being dropped from a height, and Yuichiro fell to one side, dead before he hit the ground.

With no more reason to hide what he was doing, Toshinori bent to appropriate the pistol. He remembered that Yuichiro had mentioned Kazushi Niida shooting at them, and went to see what he'd been using. His eyes widened at what he found. "A .44 AutoMag? Man alive! You must have been a _really_ lousy shot, Kazushi!" he sneered at the corpse. "With one of _these_ bad boys, I could take down a polar bear with one shot!" He tucked both pistols under his jacket. "I think I'll just keep these as souvenirs of an interesting encounter. And--let me see--what have we here? All three of your bags?" He began rooting through. "Ammunition, water and food, to go with what I already had! This is my lucky day!" _Or,_ he thought, _proof of my superiority_! He couldn't quite credit just how easy it had been to fool Yuichiro.

__

Mitsuko Souma

The weight of the submachinegun was comforting as Mitsuko made her way through the woods. Every so often, she'd stop, listening carefully for the sound of anybody moving around.

After leaving the lighthouse, she had wandered roughly southwest, carefully avoiding danger zones; she had no intention of allowing her head to be blown off by remote control. She had kept track of how many of her classmates were now dead, and she thought she had a real chance of winning the game.

Her beautiful eyes narrowed as she considered who, among those she knew to be still alive as of the last announcement, was likeliest to be dangerous. Most of the girls were gone, but Hirono Shimizu might be a tough customer to deal with. She had always been strong-minded, and Mitsuko had often sensed that if she weakened, or her plans started turning pear-shaped, Hirono would be happy to challenge her for leadership. Since a lot of her favorite tactics--sex appeal, the "cute little girl" routine--wouldn't work on Hirono, who knew her far too well, Mitsuko was glad that it had never come to that.

_If I see you, Hirono dear, before you see me, I'll make sure you never do see me_. Yoshimi Yahagi had been an easy kill--the girl was a weak character, and had fallen in with Mitsuko's gang of girl delinquents more-or-less by accident--but Hirono wouldn't go down as easily as Yoshimi had, and Mitsuko knew that Hirono had a gun. Mitsuko didn't fancy the idea of a real gunfight at all.

Dawn was coming on, with the sky to the east lightening. Mitsuko was near a group of houses, and she looked out through the bushes, straining her ears for any sound that meant people were nearby. For a second, she missed her girl gang; it would have been much easier if they had been allowed to form teams, and having more ears and eyes than her own would take some of the pressure off her.

When she was sure that nobody was around, she stepped forward. She was beginning to flag; her endurance had always been good, but the nap she'd indulged in at the lighthouse hadn't really been enough to put her back at the top of her form, and while she was glad of them, the guns she had scavenged were heavy. She tried a door, and when she found it was open, she slipped into a house.

Pausing at the entry, she held very, very still, waiting, and letting her senses tell her if the house was empty. In her career as a girl burglar, she had noticed that an uninhabited home gave off a different "vibe" than one where someone was present; she had forgotten that for a few minutes when she had first been loose on the island, and if the person in the house she had entered been more aggressive than Megumi Etou, she could have easily been taken down before she could do anything about it.

The house felt empty, so Mitsuko relaxed. She let her eyes adjust to the thicker darkness inside; the sky was growing light outside, and a little light came in through the windows. She went into one of the bedrooms, and sat down, taking the load off her feet. For the millionth time, she cursed whoever had decreed that schoolgirls' uniforms had to have the sort of shoes they did; for this sort of thing, she'd have much preferred a good pair of gym shoes.

Outside, something was moving, and she went very still, watching through the window. From where she sat, she could see outside easily enough, but she was deep in shadows. Unless someone came right up to the window and peered in, she didn't think they could see her--and if they did do that, she would have a perfect shot at them.

A small figure in a boy's school uniform was sneaking through the houses, peering around himself. Mitsuko could see that he--it looked like Toshinori Oda, that horrible little snob--was carrying a big silver pistol in one hand. While she watched, he crept up to the well outside, lowered the bucket, and raised it, filling his water bottles. She raised her eyebrows--he had quite a few more bottles than he'd have been issued with. _Looks like someone's up on the scoreboard, doesn't it_? she thought.

She considered ambushing him, but dismissed the idea. She was tired, and really not in the mood for a firefight. She could also see that Toshinori was both armed and alert, unlike the girls in the lighthouse. The point of the game was to win, not to see how many fights you could stir up. She had more than enough kills, and she didn't think Toshinori would last long; his arrogance and conviction of his own superiority would lead him straight into a situation he couldn't handle.

With a long yawn, she stretched out on the bed. Before she drifted off, she set her mental alarm so that she'd be awake for the next announcement from Command Central; she didn't want to miss that.

END Chapter 09


	10. Chapter 10

Heads is Heads, Chapter 10

by Technomad

As he led his followers north and west, Kazuo considered the possibilities. He had decided on the Farming Association building because he thought it would be a likely place to find useful things. While he was a city boy himself, he knew that farmers used all sorts of chemicals, and with his knowledge of science, he figured that he could cook up something that would give him at least a fighting chance to take down the school building.

_Once the school building was down_, he thought, _we'll be halfway home_. Yonemi Kamon, and the soldiers who enforced the Program's rules, could be counted on to be close to the school building; they certainly wouldn't dare roam the island at random! Any of his fellow students who saw one of them outside of the safety of the "forbidden zone" around the school would not hesitate; they'd shoot, and shoot to kill. Even the most peaceful of them had excellent reasons to hate their tormentors.

Thinking about escaping brought him to the next problem: _What to do afterward_? With the school building down, he was reasonably certain that he could lead an attack that would capture one of the patrol ships, and the nearest of the main islands--Honshu and Shikoku--weren't far away. By the time that the authorities figured out what had happened, he and his followers could be hiding.

However, that wouldn't solve all their problems for one second. The minute that their escape was known, they'd instantly become the Greater East Asia Republic's most-wanted criminals. Murderers and thieves were regarded with a certain weary tolerance by the government, but dissidents and rebels were hunted down mercilessly.

Considering, he decided that if it got that far--and there were still a lot of places where things could go badly pear-shaped, starting with the possibility that at least one of his own followers was actually playing; he hadn't overlooked Sho Tsukioka's guilty behavior in the clinic--he'd have them head for Honshu. As the main island of the Republic, it was large enough that they'd have a reasonable chance of going to ground before the hunt was well up. It was also closer than Shikoku, which made a difference.

Once they'd landed, he would lead them inland, away from the Seto Inland Sea and Shiroiwa. The authorities would expect them to head for their previous homes or to familiar surroundings, and so he would avoid any such places, enforcing his decisions at gunpoint if necessary. Any of his group would know too much to be allowed to wander off alone and risk capture. The authorities could break anybody if they put their minds to it.

They'd have to flee the Greater East Asia Republic somehow. As he walked along, part of his attention was on his surroundings, and part of it was turning over alternate plans to escape the country. The west coast was a backwater; being less populous and industrialized, it got less attention from the authorities. It was also temptingly close to the Asian mainland--the Republic of Korea and the Republic of Russia were both close enough that a fishing boat could, and many did, go there. And neither country was on good terms with the Republic of Greater East Asia. They wouldn't be too likely to be sent home.

For the first time, he wished he had been more politically minded. If he'd had the names and addresses of dissidents, he could ask them for help. As it was, he did know of some criminals who might help, if he could keep them from deciding to turn him and his group in for the rewards that were sure to be offered for their apprehension.

He looked at his followers. Disguises would definitely be a priority; their school uniforms would be much too dangerous to wear. That gave him an idea. He had noticed how much girls could change their appearance by merely doing something different with their hair…"Izumi!"

"Yes, boss?"

"Come here, please." Obedient as though she'd always been a member of his gang, Izumi trotted up to where he was, at the head of the group. _What a fool I was, to overlook the possibilities of a mixed gang_, thought Kazuo. He remembered situations where having girls along would have made things a great deal easier… "Tell me, Izumi. How much of a project would it be to come up with disguises for our group? When we get back to the mainland, we'll need them." Kazuo kept his voice very low, murmuring, while holding his hand over the part of the collar that held the hidden microphone.

Izumi turned, considering all the people they had. "We girls would have it easiest, I think. We're already used to fiddling with our hair, and it'd be easy to give us different styles. Come to it--we could even cut our hair short and pass as boys. None of us are very full-figured; not like Western girls our age often are." As Kazuo had done, she held her collar over the microphone, hoping that would suffice to make her words incomprehensible or inaudible to their tormentors.

That was one thing that Kazuo had not considered. If the authorities were looking for girls, pretending to be boys was one easy way to avoid them. And that could be turned in the other direction, as well…"Do you think that we guys could drag up successfully?"

Izumi's eyes went wide. She turned and gave their group a careful, considering look. Not a look like she'd give a guy she was interested in--this was more like looking over a job of work to see what it would take to do it.

"Some of you--you in particular, Boss--could possibly carry it off. Others, like Hiroshi, or Shogo, couldn't pass as girls in a million years. Voices, builds, the way they talk--everything's wrong. Matter of fact, getting _any_ of these boys to learn to speak girl-type Japanese would be a real problem."

Kazuo nodded thoughtfully. That was a complication in disguising themselves as members of the opposite sex that hadn't occurred to him. As a native Japanese speaker, the fact that men and women spoke differently--used different idioms and interjections, as well as some differences in general usage--had always been as much a part of his environment as the air he breathed.

Once he looked at the problem, though, he could see that it would be very difficult to deal with. Dressing up was one thing, and different hairstyles were less than no problem--but overcoming a lifetime's worth of habit to speak in a different way would be extremely difficult, not least for his hoodlums. While they were loyal, and brave, he was under no illusions as to their intelligence.

So dragging up was a last resort. However, that didn't mean he had to abandon the idea of disguises. As he walked along, part of his mind was turning over possibilities. All the boys were old enough to be able to grow facial hair, and that would help.

They had come to a small clearing, and had paused for a minute. Hiroshi muttered: "Gotta go--gotta water a tree!" and inclined his head toward the surrounding forest. Kazuo nodded approvingly; he had impressed on all his followers that slipping off in the darkness could have fatal consequences. After all, if one of them was off in the bush thrashing around, they could either attract the attention of a player, or be thought to be a player. And all the apologies in the world wouldn't restore someone shot by mistake to life.

Hiroshi left, obviously glad to have a chance to offload some of the tea he had swilled at the clinic. Kazuo looked around at the forest. It was pretty, he supposed--peaceful-seeming in the moonlit night--but he still preferred his familiar town streets, where he understood things.

A shot rang out, and then, a few seconds later, another one. Everybody ducked for cover, those who had weapons drawing them. Kazuo scanned the woods, wondering who was out there--and whether it was a player, or some lost soul who had decided to grab the initiative. In a lone lost soul's place, he'd have hidden and let their group go on, hoping to not be noticed, but he knew that fear made people do strange things.

Sho Tsukioka came out of the bushes. "Oh, a dreadful thing has happened!" he sobbed. "Poor Hiroshi--he stumbled across someone who thought he was playing, and he was shot before he could do anything!"

"Was he, now?" Kazuo and Izumi shared looks of equal skepticism. "I think I'll want to see the corpse for myself, and the 'scene of the crime.'"

"Wait for me!" Izumi came tagging right along, and Kazuo, after a second's thought, decided it was a good idea. Girls, he had found, had better eyes for detail than boys did, and she might well spot something that would go past him.

Sure enough, Hiroshi Kuronaga was dead. He was lying on his back, his eyes open and staring sightlessly at the sky. Kazuo knelt beside him, examining the body carefully. He couldn't find any wounds, but he could smell blood--and Sho had said that he'd been shot.

"Help me roll him over, Izumi," Kazuo ordered. At her momentary hesitation, he elaborated: "He's dead. You can't hurt him any more. He's free of the Program--lucky sod. I want to know how he died, and I need to roll the body over to see."

"Yes, boss." Izumi knelt and helped Kazuo roll the body. Kazuo took out one of the flashlights that everybody had been issued with, and looked carefully at the corpse. He swiftly found what he'd been looking for.

"Look here, Izumi," Kazuo pointed at two little holes in the back of the nape of Hiroshi's neck, surrounded by burnt gunpowder residue. "Do you see what I see?" Izumi leaned closer, her revulsion for the corpse forgotten, and her eyes opened wide. "Those holes are from a .22, and I only know of one person who has one." Kazuo pointed at the wounds. "Whoever did this came up right behind him and let him have it; if it had been from farther away, you wouldn't see this powder residue."

"And you said that Sho's really good at sneaking and following people," muttered Izumi. "He's playing--_damn_ him!" In the dim light of the flashlight, Kazuo could see her face turn red. "What does he think he's going to win, anyway?"

"His life," answered Kazuo. As always, he was as calm as though he was standing on the Shiroiwa school grounds. "He probably believes that he has a better chance playing than cooperating with me."

"Well, we'll see about _that_!" snarled Izumi, turning back toward the clearing. Kazuo came along behind her, making sure that his MAC-10 was cleared for action.

Back with the others, Sho was the center of attention with his detailed story of woe and peril. "Oh, my dears, it was simply ghastly," he purred. "I thought I'd help poor Hiroshi water the trees, and went in behind him, when, all of a sudden, this shadowy figure pops up out of the bushes, shoots Hiroshi twice, and runs off before I can do anything!" He simpered. "Not that I could do much with this popgun!" He held up his .22 Derringer.

"Oh, that weapon's more effective than you've been giving it credit for, Sho," commented Kazuo. "Tell me--where was this player? Was he--or she--in front of Hiroshi? You say you were behind him."

"The attack came from in front," Sho explained. "It was so sudden--I didn't even have time to take out my weapon before it was over!" A fat tear rolled down one cheek.

"From in front…" Kazuo said, cocking his head to one side. Behind him, he heard Izumi's soft hiss of rage. She knew--as he did--that Sho had finally unmistakably confirmed that he was, indeed, playing. There could still have been an innocent explanation, if Sho had said that he had seen someone shoot Hiroshi from behind, but this lie had made it clear that he was playing.

Dispassionately, Kazuo raised his submachinegun and pointed it at Sho. Sho's eyes hardly had time to widen before Kazuo pressed the trigger, sending ten bullets into his chest. Kazuo had judged his angle carefully--nobody was standing behind Sho when Kazuo shot him. Sho crumpled bonelessly, lying on the ground in a spreading pool of blood.

"Why did you do that?" gasped Hirono. Her pistol was in her hands, and she stared at Kazuo with huge eyes, full of fear. Beside her, Shogo scowled, hefting his shotgun.

"I'd like to know what made you do that, too, Kazuo," commented Shuuya. Discreetly pushing Noriko behind him, he pulled his revolver out, careful to point it at the ground and keep his finger off the trigger. Mitsuru growled agreement, reaching for his own pistol.

"You utter _chumps_! Sho was _playing_!" This was Izumi. Pushing past Kazuo, she faced them, unafraid, her hands on her hips and her voice dripping contempt. "He was _eliminating_ us, one at a time! _He was playing_!"

"How are you so sure?" asked Shogo. He seemed to be the one who was believing what they were being told. The others still looked very skeptical.

"He said that Hiroshi was shot from in front--but the bullet holes in the corpse are in the back. Around the nape of the neck, nice and neat, as though someone had come creeping up behind him and plugged him. They're also very small. Sho was the only one of us who had a .22, and that's about the size of those wounds. You remember how good he was at sneaking, Mitsuru?" Reluctantly, Mitsuru nodded. "He sneaked off right after Hiroshi when Hiroshi separated himself from us, and apparently came up right behind him and shot him. At that range, from behind, a .22 is more than sufficient."

"Did you see that, too, Izumi?" asked Shogo. The older boy's eyebrows were drawn down in a scowl.

"Yes, I did! You want to go look at the corpse yourself? It's not far away! Go right ahead!"

Shogo and Shuuya did as Izumi suggested, slipping off into the bushes. After a few tense minutes, they came back. Shuuya was looking very grim, and Shogo's scowl had, if anything, deepened. "You were right, Izumi--Kazuo. Sorry we doubted you." Shogo didn't say anything, but nodded to indicate that he agreed with Shuuya.

"Shogo." The older boy looked up as Kazuo addressed him. "Do you remember back at the clinic?" Shogo nodded warily. "I don't think you were mistaken. Sho had been in there, sniffing around, and he may have done something to Ryuhei. Either smothered him with a pillow or something like that, or injected him with something nasty and fast."

"So _that's_ it," Shogo breathed. His eyes suddenly flashed, and Kazuo thought that if Sho had been alive, and had seen that look, he'd have been running for cover. "Damn him--and double-damn me, for being a trusting fool!" He smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. "I thought there was something awfully rum about Ryuhei dying just where and when he did! And Sho had been asking me about how to go about giving injections--and I showed him!" His hands clenched into useless fists. "Damn me--it's all my fault! I should have suspected him!"

"You didn't have any reason to suspect him. Izumi and I both noticed that he was suspiciously well-informed about our plans from the moment he showed up, but there hadn't been time to let you know. You are _not_ at fault, Shogo--so _Get. Over. Yourself!"_ Kazuo stepped forward, confronting the bigger boy without a trace of fear. "You are not infallible or perfect. You make mistakes."

"Don't I just know it?" muttered Shogo. The pain in his voice was very clear. Takako patted him on the arm, offering what comfort she could. He smiled briefly and took her hand.

"I didn't say anything because, at least at first, there were innocent explanations for everything," Kazuo explained. "He might have just guessed my plans. Ryuhei could have died naturally; I didn't know his medical history well enough to be certain that he didn't have, say, a heart condition or something else that would have combined with the effects of his wound to carry him off. If Sho's story had fit the facts as I found them, he'd be alive right now. We need everybody we can find working with us if we're going to survive."

"But nobody needs a player," said Noriko Nakagawa. She stepped forward, facing Kazuo, utterly unafraid. "At first, what you did shocked me, but I can see why you did it. Sho was playing, and we can't have treachery." Rather to Kazuo's surprise, she bowed to him. "I really respect you for what you did. You may have saved all of us."

"At least for now. Come on--time's wasting," said Mitsuru. "I can't say I'll miss Sho much. You said you knew where you wanted to go, boss, so let's get over there."

With that, the little group moved out again, leaving Sho's corpse where it lay. Kazuo gestured at Izumi, inviting her over to his side.

"I noticed you were going through Sho's things, and taking the stuff that would be useful. Good idea. Keep his pistol. Even that .22 popgun is better than nothing." Shuuya had Kyoichi's revolver, Takako had Kaori's automatic pistol, Hirono had a revolver, Shogo had his shotgun, Mitsuru had the automatic pistol he had been issued, and Kazuo, of course, had his submachinegun. Only Noriko was unarmed, and he figured on remedying _that_ if they took down another player. The more people in his group that were armed, the better chance they had in a fight.

"Don't forget my time bombs, boss."

Kazuo raised an eyebrow. "I hadn't forgotten them, but hadn't figured out just how to use them to best advantage yet. I'm glad to see you're thinking."

"Thinking is how people stay alive in the Program, boss. People who just jump in screaming, like their hair was on fire, don't last long. Like Kazushi."

"Yes. I noticed that his name was called at 'roll-call.' I'm a little surprised that he lasted as long as he did."

"For a while, a ruthless attitude will keep a player in the game, but that has its limitations, and from what I saw of Kazushi, he'd gone off the deep end." Izumi paused, clearly wondering how to phrase what she wanted to say next. "For that matter, boss, I don't think that your--friends--would have lasted for long without you."

"You'll never know just how right you are about that." Kazuo remembered the coin-toss. Had it come down tails, he'd have opened fire, cutting his followers down by surprise before they knew what had hit them. He knew his classmates, and he believed that he'd have been in with a very good chance to be the Program's winner. But the coin had decided otherwise, and he had chosen to follow that path.

By this time, they had come close to the Farming Association building. Kazuo gestured, and his little group stopped, staying hidden in the shadows. Kazuo went forward, slowly, making as little noise as he could. _For this, I could really have used Sho's skills_, he thought. He was good, but he dispassionately knew that Sho Tsukioka had no equal at moving undetected. That was one reason why he had been allowed to join Kazuo's gang in the first place.

Much to his surprise, the place did not seem to be deserted. He could see two shadowy figures moving things around purposefully. _Who was there, and what could they be up to_?

Pausing, he listened carefully. Faint and far, he heard: "Come on, Yutaka. You can do it!" It had to be Shinji Mimura. Where Yutaka Sato was, Shinji Mimura wasn't far away.

Knowing who he was dealing with, Kazuo made a decision. Stepping out of the bushes, keeping his submachinegun low by his side, he hissed: "Hey, you two! Over here! I'm not playing!" Shinji's head snapped up, and he grabbed for his belt, coming up with a pistol.

Before Shinji could take aim, Izumi stepped out into the open, keeping her hands open and visible. "We're really not playing, boys!" At the sight of her, Shinji visibly relaxed, lowering his gun.

"Izumi? Why did you do that?" hissed Kazuo.

"Couldn't let them shoot you, boss," she answered. Kazuo paused, and gave her a very long look, as they waited for Shinji to come to them.

END Chapter 10


	11. Chapter 11

Heads is Heads, Chapter 11

Heads is Heads, Chapter 11

by Technomad

_Mitsuko Souma_

Mitsuko came awake, wondering for a second where she was, before memory kicked in. She glanced at her watch; it was about 5:00 AM, or 0500 hours, to use the 24-hour clock that the regime preferred. It was a good hour before morning "roll call," and she hadn't planned to awaken so early.

Holding very still, she listened carefully, and ice water seemed to flow through her veins. She could hear something---or _someone_---moving around, in the same house she was in. She shuddered involuntarily, and blessed the luck that had made her a very light sleeper, as well as a non-snorer. If she had been a deep sleeper, or had been prone to snoring, whoever was in there with her would have had a chance to find her. Her ingrained alertness had saved her, yet again.

Who was it? Probably that ridiculous little snob Toshinori. She had seen him outside earlier. She called up all her memories of Toshinori, which didn't amount to a lot. She and Toshinori had had almost nothing to do with one another; he was a rich man's son, she was the orphaned daughter of a dissident, living with extremely neglectful foster parents after her mother and the perv she had married had disappeared.

While she was an indifferent student in school, Mitsuko Souma thought that there were few people better at analyzing other people---male people, in particular---than she was. She'd had a great deal of practice, in situations where mistakes could prove fatal. She considered the odds, and, coldly, figured that she could take Toshinori down fairly easily, unless he caught her off-guard. She had noticed the way he looked at the girls in their class, with mingled longing and hatred, and she knew that her looks tended to hypnotize men, luring them in to their own destruction.

If she had to, she'd seduce Toshinori. She figured that unless he was very different from the other boys she knew, he had to be just about crazy with lust, and a smart, ruthless girl could twist such a boy around her finger at will. Boys were like other automata---press this button, and Reaction A happened, reliable as sunrise.

She heard movement in the house again, and came to the conclusion that she didn't want to meet Toshinori, if she had to meet him at all, in the dark of the house. She wasn't much of a shot, and didn't want to have to blaze away blindly; she also knew that firing off guns in a house would deafen her for some time afterwards, which did not appeal.

Slipping over to the window, she tried the latch, and smiled to herself to find that it was working. She opened the window, pushed her bag through into the bushes surrounding the house, and climbed through, quiet as a ghost. Once she was outside, she crouched in the shelter of the bushes, listening intently. She could still hear someone---Toshinori?---moving around inside the house, but there was no sign of life outside other than her. Dawn was lighting the sky as she carefully got to her feet and made for the nearby woods.

_Toshinori Oda_

Before being roped into the Program, Toshinori Oda had never been in anybody's house other than his own. Even if his classmates hadn't scorned him, he'd have scorned them. Visit _their_ vulgar houses? Not _him_! If nothing else, the Program had offered him a chance to see how the vulgar masses lived. Of course, compared to the mansion he called home, these houses were nothing much.

He was in one of the houses, looking around for anything useful, when he thought he heard someone moving around. He froze, fear chilling his blood. Inside a house, there were endless opportunities for an ambush, and he hadn't been very careful, thinking the house had to be deserted.

Holding as still as he could, he listened carefully, straining to catch every noise that he could. Sure enough, he heard it again. It was the unmistakable sound of a window opening. Crouching in the dark, he clutched the butt of his revolver, shaking with terror. Even though he had his vest, he knew perfectly well that it only protected his chest, and a head shot, or one to a limb, could cripple or kill him just as easily as one of the vulgar masses.

Even after silence descended, he held still, sweat pouring off him; he thought he could smell the stench of his own fear. When he thought it was safe, he began cautiously moving toward the front door, eager to escape the house. From a safe place to hole up, it had suddenly started feeling very like a trap---one that could have caught him!

At the front door, he looked out across the lawn. There was no sign of movement, and he couldn't hear anything but what he thought were normal night sounds, so he finally risked moving away from the house, sticking close to the shadows and not letting himself be caught in the open.

_Mitsuko Souma_

Mitsuko had found herself a wonderful hiding place, deep enough in the woods that she'd be unlikely to be found, but with a clear view of the houses she had been in. Her eyes widened as she watched the house she had left; she could see a small figure in a boy's school uniform creeping out of the front door! She shuddered at the close call she had had, and made a mental note to not be so overconfident the next time.

She went over what had happened, and considered how it might have been if she'd tried shooting Toshinori---if it was Toshinori; there were at least two other boys about his size in the class---instead of just watching him. She quickly concluded that she'd been right not to shoot. She wasn't a good shot---she'd had no real experience with guns before the Program---and Toshinori-or-whoever had been far enough away to be very difficult to hit.

The weapons they had been given had all been fairly short-ranged, for obvious reasons. The people running the Program didn't fancy actually putting their own precious, irreplaceable hides in any danger, and didn't want the students they'd kidnapped in any position to turn the tables---like by being able to snipe at them from a safe distance. It was a pity, Mitsuko decided---she'd been doing quite well, but that didn't mean she liked the Program or that disgusting perv who was running it. She'd met quite a few "Yonemi Kamons" in her career as a part-time prostitute/mugger, and while she could handle them, she despised them. _All the while, taking---they call it love, but it's just taking and taking,_ she thought, memories of her stepfather bubbling up from the depths of her subconscious where she usually kept them. Involuntarily, she shuddered.

Forcing her mind off _that_ subject, she allowed herself a delicious few seconds of reverie, thinking about what she'd do if she had a chance at Kamon. If she could lure him someplace quiet and private, she could take her time---most of her victims, she was content to just take their money and credit cards, but for Kamon, she'd gladly make an exception. She'd come up with something for _him_ that would horrify anybody! She could seduce him, she had no doubt; she had seen how he looked at her and the other girl students, and, even without that, she knew that she could make almost any male bark and drool.

Except Kazuo Kiriyama. At one point, she had tried seducing _him_, intrigued by the rumors that his family was wealthy, but she had found herself bouncing off a wall of cold indifference. It wasn't that he was gay---Mitsuko thought she could tell _that_ right off---it was just that she didn't seem to matter to him. It was like she was part of the scenery, not a person.

Mitsuko's eyes narrowed. She knew that Kiriyama was still alive; she'd been listening carefully to the "roll call" lists of the dead, and his name hadn't been called. If she had to go up against him, she wouldn't try her usual ploys---she'd shoot first, shoot straight, and shoot to kill. No mere male had the right to be indifferent to _her_!

Those hoodlums that followed him around would be much less of a problem, Mitsuko thought. Except, of course, for Sho Tsukioka---he was not only gay, but incredibly open about it. How he managed to survive in school was a mystery to Mitsuko. Not to mention elsewhere---the regime was very much opposed to homosexuality. While Sho's affiliation with Kiriyama's group could explain why the other male students left him pretty much alone, it left the question of why Kiriyama and his mates tolerated Sho at all. Mitsuko knew that most males of their age loathed anything to do with homosexuality.

After a little while, she heard the premonitory crackle from the loudspeakers that warned her that "roll call" and "homeroom" were about to start. Nestling down farther in the bushes, she got out her map of the island.

"_Good_ morning, little warriors!" As always, Kamon sounded utterly self-satisfied; a man content with the world and his place in it. "I notice that your pace has slackened somewhat. It's a pity, but I suppose that record-breaking spree couldn't be kept up for long. Even so, we've had a few losses. All boys, this time. Boy #9, Hiroshi Kuronaga. Boy #13---the unlucky Yuichiro Takiguchi. And Boy #14, Sho Tsukioka. Not as good as that burst of enthusiasm that broke out at the lighthouse, but I suppose we can't have everything, can we, little warriors?"

Mitsuko cocked a sardonic eyebrow. _If that slob thinks this is so __damn __easy, let __him__ put on a collar and come out to play_, she thought. She, for one, would have welcomed him into the game.

_Toshinori Oda_

From his hiding place, Toshinori heard Kamon reciting the names of the dead. _Vulgarians, one and all, _he thought. _Not one fit to so much as associate with __me_! Yuichiro, of course, he knew about---he had done the deed himself, after all---but Hiroshi and Sho's deaths were news.

No great losses there, as far as he was concerned. While he had despised Yuichiro as an otaku and a vulgarian, he had feared Hiroshi. The big hoodlum had never done anything to him, but his sheer size and his ruthless reputation ensured that Toshinori steered well clear of him.

He wondered just who had been in the house. He thought he had smelled a woman's perfume, and he knew that quite a few of the more precocious girls in their year wore the stuff. Of course, dabbing oneself with artificial scents was impossibly vulgar, but what could one expect of such creatures? All they were good for was bearing babies.

The likeliest suspects, he decided, were the members of Mitsuko Souma's clique. They had been the first girls in their class to wear makeup, and it was rumored that they did a lot more than just experiment with makeup, perfume and kissing. Even though he knew that Mitsuko herself, at least, was very poor---at least, they had had to make some sort of special financial arrangement for her to be provided with uniforms, books and school supplies---she was suspiciously well-funded when it came to things like the latest manicure craze.

Was she into _enjo kosai_---"subsidized dating?" Toshinori wouldn't put it past her for a second, and it wasn't just because she was vulgar, either, although _that_ certainly colored his thinking. There were other girls, such as Takako Chigusa, who were just as vulgar, who he couldn't imagine doing such things in a thousand years.

No---Mitsuko's nickname was "Hardcore" for good reasons. She gave the impression that she didn't give a damn---not about her "friends," not about her classmates, not about anybody but Mitsuko Souma. He had overheard her talking with her friends on more than one occasion---he had _not_ been eavesdropping; was it _his_ fault that they chattered away when he was in earshot?---and she had made it clear that she held most people in contempt. Her friends seemed to think she made an exception for them, but Toshinori had a strong impression that secretly she despised them, too.

_If I get a clear shot at her, the vulgar bitch is going down, down, down_! he decided gleefully. Shifting position slightly, he peered around, hoping to catch sight of Mitsuko's tall, curvaceous figure.

_Mitsuko Souma_

A movement caught Mitsuko's eye, and she allowed herself a grin. She had recognized the color of their school's boys' uniform coat through a very slight gap in the foliage. If she could just get close enough!

Slowly, carefully, making as little noise as she could, she moved closer, never taking her eyes off the target. Again, she visualized herself as a _kunoichi_ from the old days---beautiful and lethal, stalking and bringing down her target. However, unlike a real _kunoichi_, her only loyalty was to herself.

When she thought she was well within range, she stood up suddenly, bringing up the submachinegun and pressing the trigger, spraying the bushes where her target was hiding.

_Toshinori Oda_

A sudden chattering roar startled him, and he felt as though he'd been kicked in the side several times, hard. Whirling, he found himself staring at Death in the form of a beautiful girl, holding a submachinegun under one arm and firing; he could see the muzzle-flashes like the winking of a demon's eye.

Despite the impacts, Toshinori wasn't seriously hurt---his vest had saved him. He yanked out the Auto-Mag and brought it up, pulling the trigger as fast as he could. He wasn't sure if he could hit Mitsuko, but at worst, he'd make her duck and spoil her aim.

END Chapter 11.


	12. Chapter 12

Heads is Heads, Chapter 12

by Technomad

Izumi relaxed slightly as she saw Shinji lower his pistol. She hadn't been too worried; she had been there at the school when Shinji had deliberately distracted Kamon, asking him if he got less money for every student he killed before the Game properly began, before he could shoot Shuuya. She had been in awe of his courage then, and she knew more than enough about Shinji Mimura to know that he was the last person who'd be likely to buy into the Program and play.

However, Shinji had no reason to know that about Kazuo Kiriyama. The two boys had never moved in the same circles; Shinji was a sports star who cut a swathe through the girls, while Kazuo, before he had gathered his entourage of hoodlums, had always been a loner. Most of the other boys distrusted Kazuo, and disliked or feared his delinquent followers. Shinji had to be assured, quickly, that Kazuo wasn't playing.

"Izumi Kanai?" Shinji's eyes went wide. "Well, well, well---live long enough and you never know what you'll see next!" Izumi felt herself blushing. She had once had a crush on Shinji, but when she found out about his habit of "love them and leave them," she had abandoned it. She had always wanted a boyfriend, but she wanted one for herself. _And I think I've found the one I want_, she thought.

Shinji's eyes narrowed, and he squatted, using his finger to write in the soft earth. Izumi squinted, trying to read it upside down. Luckily, Shinji's handwriting was clear.

_WE ARE BEING OVERHEARD. SAY __NOTHING__ YOU DON'T WANT TO SHARE WITH KAMON_.

Izumi nodded. Kazuo didn't show any reaction, merely squatting to write: _WE KNOW. IZUMI TOLD ME_.

_HOW DID __YOU TWO__ END UP TOGETHER?_ asked Shinji.

_LONG STORY. I'VE GOT OTHERS WHO'RE RESISTING HERE. CAN I CALL THEM? _Shinji nodded, and Kazuo turned toward the woods. "Come on out, you all. It's okay."

Shinji's expression of wonder at the sight of Kazuo's followers amused Izumi. She wasn't surprised, though. Prior to being roped into the Program, Kazuo had had nothing whatsoever to do with Shuuya Nanahara, and very few people had even had a conversation with Shogo Kawada. She didn't blame Shinji for being startled at seeing Shogo not only obviously an accepted member of the group, but clearly claimed by Takako Chigusa. At least Mitsuru and Hirono were a pair that might have been predicted.

_DO YOU HAVE A PLAN_? wrote Kazuo.

_SURE DO_, answered Shinji, as the others gathered around to see. He held up a small object that Izumi had seen him wearing around his neck for most of the school year. _WITH THIS LITTLE BEAUTY---A DETONATOR LEFT ME BY MY LATE REVOLUTIONARY UNCLE---I CAN BUILD A BOMB THAT'LL SEND THE SCHOOL SKY-HIGH_!

Kazuo's eyes widened. _WHAT SORT OF INGREDIENTS ARE YOU GOING TO USE?_

Shinji grinned like a man who had the ace of spades up his sleeve. _THIS IS A FARMING AREA. I ALREADY FOUND ENOUGH DIESEL FUEL AND FERTILIZER TO DO THE JOB, WITH A LOT OF ROOM TO SPARE._

As the others watched, eyes wide with wonder and delight, Shinji explained what he had planned. _IT'LL BE A LOT EASIER WITH YOU HELPING. ARE YOU IN?_

One and all, they nodded eagerly. Shinji smiled, and began apportioning the work.

The plan was simple, yet audacious. While the school itself was in a permanent danger zone---any of them entering it would be killed instantly by their collars detonating---the agricultural association, nearby, and the area on the other side of the school were currently safe.

Shinji had found what he needed to build a bomb; delivery, on the other hand, was a much trickier proposition. His idea was to run a rope from their position across the hollow where the school was, to the other side, secure it on the other side, and then slide the bomb along over the school, letting it go when it was over the target.

_Chemical balances. Mixing times. Purity questions._

Shinji, Shogo and Kazuo were in charge of mixing the explosive itself. The fertilizer and fuel oil had to be added in the proper proportions, and mixed very thoroughly, for maximum effectiveness. The three of them were by far the most knowledgable people available, and Shogo was the strongest of them and best able to handle the heavy bags of fertilizer and drums of fuel oil.

_Perimeter security. The necessity of silence. Unblinking watchfulness_.

Mitsuru, Shuuya and Hirono took charge of keeping a wary eye on the surrounding forests. One player, popping up at the wrong time, could ruin everything. They both had pistols, and patrolled the area just outside the building where Shinji and Kazuo were working, making as sure as they could that they wouldn't be interrupted.

_Communications issues. Coordination of effort. Maximizing efficiency_.

Izumi, Noriko and Takako were in charge of keeping things all working smoothly. They had found some pads of paper and pencils in the agricultural association's office, and everybody communicated by scribbling notes. No word was spoken aloud; they did not want to tip off Kamon or the soldiers to what was coming.

_Delivery systems_. _Targeting problems. Ensuring success_.

Yutaka Sato was in charge of creating the system to put the rope into place. Shinji had found some tanks of lighter-than-air gas, of the sort used to inflate balloons for children's parties, and some plastic bags, and Yutaka was busily using them to make improvised balloons. With the balloons attached to it at regular intervals, they could float the rope in the air over the school, guiding it along with someone at the far end to tie it off at the proper point.

The work was hard and absorbing. As they bent to their tasks, Izumi found herself all but forgetting the circumstances---the whole Program, the weird way in which she'd become a member of Kazuo Kiriyama's gang, and even her classmates' deaths. Compared to the concrete problems that faced them---finding more fertilizer and fuel oil, keeping absolute silence, or as silent as they could get, making sure that some ambitious player didn't interrupt them---those things seemed to be far away. Her world shrank to accomplishing the next task. If she had been so focussed on her schoolwork, a tiny part of her mind said, she could have had much better grades.

Mixing the explosive was a slow, careful, rather fiddly job. The oil and fertilizer had to be added to each other in precise proportions for the stuff to work, and neither ingredient had been packaged with this in mind. Shogo soon stripped off his school uniform jacket and shirt, and Izumi noticed Takako drooling slightly at the sight. She, of course, was above that. She had her eye on a different guy, and wasn't affected at all by the way Shogo's muscles rippled as he worked.

Okay, maybe she was affected.

A little.

She was human, after all---and female. And it had been a long time…

Forcing herself to think about something different, she focussed, instead, on watching Kazuo. Even though he was playing with volatile, explosive chemicals, Kazuo was as cool as ever, at least to look at. The only way you could tell that he was concentrating and taking things seriously was to look at his eyes; they narrowed very slightly while he was mixing the fuel oil and fertilizer. She had never seen him show even so much emotion.

For a few seconds, she allowed herself a daydream---she and Kazuo had escaped, and were holed up together in a luxurious "love hotel" in one of the big cities. She was reclining on a heart-shaped bed, wearing nothing but a smile and a very flimsy short nightie, as Kazuo walked in. When he saw her, he smiled, and his smile lit up his face and transformed it into something that would break any female heart…

Shaking herself to snap herself out of her fantasies, she took refuge in anger at herself. _Snap out of it, stupid woman_! she thought. _We're a long way from being out of the woods, and this is no time to be drooling over some boy who probably barely remembers that you're even female! _

Even as she turned her attention back to what she was doing, she couldn't help wondering what Kazuo would look like if he followed Shogo's lead and stripped to the waist. From what she could see of him, she thought that he didn't have a spare ounce of flesh, and she knew that he was quite strong. _He probably has nice flat muscles like an acrobat…_

When the explosive was ready, the boys poured it into a large plastic drum that they had found in a corner of the building. Shinji rigged the detonator himself, not trusting anybody else, even Shogo or Kazuo, to do it. Izumi caught Kazuo's eye, and saw approval there.

"He does seem to know what he is doing," murmured Kazuo, very low, his lips nearly touching Izumi's ear and making her shiver slightly.

For a few seconds, she wondered just why his uncle would have left him a detonator, of all unlikely things---and what had happened to his uncle. Then Yutaka Sato distracted her. He had finished rigging the rope with the balloons that would carry it into the air, and came up to the side of the bomb, his "class clown" manner completely gone. Solemnly, he knelt and wrote on the side of the bomb, before straightening up, bowing to the bomb as though it were a Shinto shrine, and backing away. Izumi could see tears in his eyes.

Curious, she took a closer look. He had named the bomb _Fumiyo's Revenge_. For a second, she didn't understand---and then she did, and felt sick and slightly ashamed. Fumiyo Fujiyoshi had been the first of their class to die, killed by a knife thrown into her forehead by Yonemi Kamon, while they were still sitting in the hellish classroom they had awakened in, absorbing the fact that they had been taken for the Program.

She remembered that Fumiyo had giggled to some of her friends about a boy who had a crush on her, but she had never mentioned just who it was, preferring to let her friends guess. Izumi figured that she now knew who that boy had been, and she felt a burst of sorrow for both of them. _They would have made a good couple_, she considered_, but they never had the chance. Damn the Program, anyway_!

She looked at the other girls, and saw that they had all twigged to what the name had to mean. Noriko's cheeks were wet with tears, and Hirono looked like she was keeping her upper lip stiff with some effort. Takako looked toward where the school lay, and if Kamon had seen the smile that crossed her face, he'd have been running for his life.

For the first time in a while, Shinji spoke. "It's time." With that, they all moved to their assigned places. Shuuya and Shogo took the far end of the rope, and began leading it out, carefully keeping it from tangling in trees, heading out and around the school grounds, to a tree that Shinji had picked out on the other side of the danger zone.

After about half an hour, the rope twitched three times, and Shinji pulled at it to make sure that it was tied tightly. Satisfied, he tied the other end to one of the pillars in the agricultural association building, and raised the bomb up. They had found a pulley near a well in one of the built-up areas, and the bomb would run on that down the rope.

Giving the bomb a final pat for good luck, Shinji sent it on down the rope. It slithered along silently, tearing the balloons away as it gathered speed. Off in the east, Izumi could see the first glimmers of dawn, and she glanced at her watch. It was an hour before the area on the far side of the school would become a danger zone, and she hoped that Shuuya and Shogo were well on their way back, or that they had headed in another direction toward safety. After all, if the bomb didn't work, they'd need to keep on with the game for as long as they could.

She hardly noticed that she was holding her breath as she watched the bomb travelling, faster and faster. The other girls were also tensing up, mentally urging the bomb to reach its destination. Izumi was not a religious person, but she found herself mentally begging the Buddha that her grandparents had worshipped to guide the bomb to its target and make it explode as planned.

When the bomb was directly over the middle of the school building, Shinji cut the rope suddenly, and it crashed through the tile roof. In the dim light of earliest morning, Izumi could see it as it impacted against the attic floor and smashed on through, to the ground floor.

END Chapter 12


	13. Chapter 13

Heads is Heads, Chapter 13

by Technomad

_Mitsuko Souma_

Mitsuko scrambled through the bushes, her mind racing. _How in__ hell __did that little wretch survive?_ She knew she wasn't a good shot, but she hadn't thought that would matter---not at that range, it wouldn't! She knew that the submachinegun was working, and that the ammunition was good---she had seen leaves and twigs flying where stray rounds had hit them---but Toshinori, or whoever she had been shooting at, didn't seem to have been harmed at all!

She reflexively ducked as another bullet whined by, uncomfortably close. Intellectually, she knew perfectly well that if she could hear it, it had missed her---but her blood ran cold at that sound none the less. It meant that someone was trying to kill her, and had come a great deal closer than she would have preferred.

She cursed the burst of panic that had seized her when her target had not only survived the burst of submachinegun fire she had sent in his direction, but had begun firing back. Instead of doing the sensible thing and taking cover, she had turned and run, bullets whizzing past her, and she hadn't paid attention to where she was going. Right at the moment, she didn't know where she was. She was completely disorientated; the stars above her, insofar as she could even see them through the thick foliage, were of no use whatsoever. She was a town girl---her idea of orienteering was finding her way from one club to the other by a back alley when the police were on the prowl.

What was worse than not knowing where she was was not knowing where her enemy was. She wanted to get away, but apparently whoever it was out there had other plans. She heard a sharp crack, and another bullet sang by.

_Damn you! I'm trying to __disengage__! Leave me be!_ This was a lot less fun than outsmarting Megumi Etou, or overcoming the justified distrust of the lighthouse girls. This was real live combat, and direct combat was not a Mitsuko Souma specialty.

_Of course!_ Mitsuko couldn't believe she had been so stupid. Why was she running around in the bushes shooting, when she had better weapons at her disposal? Making sure to find a heavy fallen log to hide behind, just in case, she called out to her opponent.

_Toshinori Oda_

Every time he breathed in, Toshinori felt a sharp, stabbing pain. He knew that the bullets hadn't penetrated his skin; he'd checked as best he could, and couldn't find any blood or open wounds. Although the vest had undoubtedly saved his life, it hadn't completely protected him. The bullets that had hit him had probably broken at least a few ribs.

Even so, he knew he'd been lucky. When the bullets hit him, it had occurred to him for the first time just how much of his body the vest did not cover. His head, arms, legs, and especially his crotch were as vulnerable as everybody else's. All it would have taken would have been one lucky bullet, and he'd have been wounded and helpless, waiting for some vulgarian or other to finish him off, or for the area to be declared a danger zone, and the remotely-controlled collar around his neck blow his head off.

He felt a cold fury. That…that _vulgarian _had tried to _kill_ him! _Him_! The most talented young violinist in the prefecture, and son to one of the richest men in the province! He saw some movement, aimed at it carefully, and pulled the trigger again. The big Auto-Mag bucked and roared, making his ears ring---_Merciful Buddha, don't let this damage my musical ear!_

_I deserve to survive! The superior survive, and I am superior! _He fumbled the magazine out of the Auto-Mag, and dumped it and the pistol into his bag rather than reload it. On the whole, despite the Auto-Mag's incredible stopping power, he preferred the revolver he had taken from Yuichiro. It kicked a lot less, and he had more ammunition for it---the Auto-Mag's previous owner, or owners, had been rather profligate.

He hefted the revolver, letting an unlovely grin twist his face. If he got a good, clear shot at her, little Miss "Hardcore" Souma was going down! He thumbed the hammer back, relishing the click as it cocked.

A voice came from in front of him, startling him. "Toshinori? Is that you, Toshinori Oda?" Reflexively, he fired at it. "Merciful Buddha, don't shoot at me! Please! Don't shoot!" A sob. "I've been so scared! _Please_ don't shoot at me!"

_What in the __world__? _Toshinori lowered his pistol, puzzled. What would Hardcore Souma, of all people, be frightened of? He would have thought she would revel in the opportunity to kill their classmates. Intrigued, he decided to let her talk.

_Mitsuko Souma_

All her life, Mitsuko had been able to con people. She thought, in the rare times when she allowed herself to think about her future, that she might have been a good actress. She knew, though, that with her background and her indifferent performance in school, the only parts she'd be likely to be offered would be in pornographic films.

Quashing her bitterness---she needed to concentrate on survival---she called out again. "Is that really you, Toshinori?" No bullet came singing at her, which she took as a good sign. She went on: "I'm sorry I shot at you earlier! It's just that---I've been so _scared_! Every time I turn around, someone's trying to kill me! You don't want to _kill_ me, do you, Toshinori? You're a musician! You've got a special soul!"

She thought about everything she knew about Toshinori Oda. She had heard that he despised their classmates, as she did, albeit for different reasons. He thought very highly of himself; to hear him tell it, he was Buddha's own gift to music. One of the things she had learned on the streets was that everybody thought he or she was special; agree with them, at least out loud, and they were often putty in a sharp girl's hands.

Drawing breath, she went on: "I always liked it when you played your violin for us. I just didn't dare say anything---not in front of _that_ bunch of mindless yahoos!" No shot came, which Mitsuko took as an encouraging sign. "You really do have a lot of talent for that, you know! I always figured that I'd see you playing one day with the National Symphony Orchestra!"

_Toshinori Oda_

At first, Toshinori could hardly believe his ears. It _was_ Hardcore Souma---saying she liked his music! He'd have been likelier to believe it if it had been somebody like their late class representative, Kyoichi Motobuchi, or the equally-late Kazuhiko Yamamoto.

When she referred to their classmates as "mindless yahoos," he nodded to himself. _You got __that__ one right_, _Hardcore_, he thought. Part of him disbelieved every word she said, but part of him yearned to believe her and accept her at face value. Visions of Mitsuko swam in his mind, and he found himself responding involuntarily. She was horribly vulgar, to be sure, but she had the face and body of a Christian angel.

The beginnings of a plan began to stir in his mind, and he smiled. She still didn't know about his ace-in-the-hole, after all. If he could lure her out somehow…"Yeah, right!" he called back. "Tell me another one! I don't even think you knew what piece I played, when we had our last class recital!"

Much to his surprise, Mitsuko came back with "It was the _Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, _by Bach!" Toshinori nearly swallowed his teeth in surprise. He had played the _Toccata_---and done it, in his own unbiassed estimate, exquisitely well. He would have bet a great deal of money that none of his classmates would have known the _Toccata_ from a hole in the ground. Could it be that Mitsuko Souma---"Hardcore" Souma, girl delinquent---was a closet music buff? He would have never guessed it, but stranger things had happened. He had seen Yakuza chieftains in the audience at symphony concerts, and heard them speaking knowledgably about the music during intermission.

He would never have admitted it, but Toshinori was dreadfully lonely. All his life, he had been told by his wealthy father that he, and his older brother Nobunaga, were superior---that other people were vulgar inferiors, things to be used. Unfortunately, his small size, wide, thick-lipped mouth and bulging eyes tended to give people the opposite impression, and his attempts to rectify the situation somehow never seemed to work as planned. He couldn't overcome his classmates with muscle, and they were utterly unimpressed with his musical abilities.

And if Hardcore Souma was a music buff---that opened up all sorts of intriguing possibilities. Toshinori was no virgin---the female staff at his father's house were often willing to accommodate the "young master"---but he had never had a girlfriend. While he wouldn't want to be seen with someone as vulgar and common as Mitsuko Souma, he had to allow that she was easy on the eyes.

He was suddenly overwhelmed by a fantasy of himself seducing Mitsuko, showing her that he _was_ superior, making her his adoring slave. She would be a wonderful convenience for him to come home to, at the end of a hard day at the conservatory or with the orchestra. He pictured her, wearing nothing but a maid's apron and hat, bringing him a cold drink before kneeling to find out how she could serve him. The scenario had real possibilities…and a superior person, such as he was, might be able to figure a way to get them both off the island and back to Shiroiwa!

"If you aren't playing, then show yourself! _Unarmed_!" he shouted. "If I see a gun, I'm shooting to kill!"

_Mitsuko Souma_

Mitsuko nearly hugged herself with glee. The ploy was working! Quickly, she stashed her guns. Her sickle, she concealed---she stuck the handle down one side of her belt, under her skirt, with the blade along her side. It was a little awkward, but her school jacket hid it. She was not going to meet _Toshinori Oda_, of all people, unarmed!

She contemplated letting him seduce her, before dispatching him, and shuddered slightly. She was used to doing all sorts of distasteful things, but letting "Froggy" Oda slobber over her was, she considered, above and beyond almost anything she had ever done before. Still and all, this was the Program...distasteful things were all part of the package.

Cautiously, ready to jump for cover, she stepped out into the open, her hands out and open to show that they were empty. She knew that Toshinori was a little distance away, which gave her more confidence. Although, like the others, he had been through basic military weapons familiarization in school, that had not included any real marksmanship training---the regime had better things to do than instruct potential dissidents in the finer points of shooting, after all. Add to that the fact that, as far as she knew, none of their weapons was really designed to engage at long range, and she felt that she was safe enough.

If Toshinori was planning to shoot, he'd probably miss, and she could duck back into cover. The log she'd been sheltering behind was in some thick undergrowth, and wasn't easy to see until one was almost on top of it, even in full daylight. At this hour of the early morning, once she was back in the bushes, she was sure she could hide as long as need be.

Toshinori Oda was not a patient person, she knew. If things turned bad, she could almost certainly hide, and he'd either show himself in a way that gave her a clear shot, or wander off, and she could go on her way. She could use the supplies that he was almost certainly carrying, but she was fairly well-found for food and water already, and she had more guns than she could really use. If she had chosen to stay with and work with her old girl gang, they'd probably have been one of the most well-armed groups on the island, but she had chosen to play a lone hand.

No shots came. Instead, after a few minutes, a diminutive figure stood forth out of the shadows. He came forward, and, sure enough, it was Toshinori Oda. That unlovely frog face was utterly distinctive. Mitsuko put on a big smile and went forward to meet him.

_Toshinori Oda_

Toshinori could hardly believe it. Mitsuko Souma, one of the acknowledged beauties of their class, was smiling warmly at him! At school, she'd usually looked right through him as though he didn't exist. Now, now that they were in the Program, she finally deigned to acknowledge him! He stuffed one of his guns into his belt, under his school jacket, and went out to see her.

Even though he wanted to take her at face value, he wasn't stupid enough to do so. If she made one move he thought was threatening, the vulgar little bitch was going to go _right_ down! A lot of people thought that just because he was small, and bad at sports, that he was harmless. Small, he was---and he hated it; bad at sports, he'd admit to---although he thought sports were vulgar. Harmless? _Him_? That was a laugh!

And…a superior person, such as _he_ was, needed and _deserved_ a break for some of the old in-out-in-out! He knew more than enough about Mitsuko Souma to have no illusions that she was a sweet, virginal creature. He anticipated a really enjoyable interlude---and, if he ended up having to kill her, if he couldn't figure a way off the island for her, who would care? _Who_, at seventh and last, would miss Hardcore Souma? _Gorgeous, sexy---and __expendable__! Truly, the gods have smiled upon me_!

He walked forward, his hands open and empty, a wide smile wreathing his face.

_Mitsuko Souma_

Mastering her revulsion, Mitsuko gave Toshinori her most seductive smile. "Hello, Toshinori! My, it's good to see your face---to see any kind of friendly face!" She gave a rather exaggerated shudder, making sure that her breasts bounced prettily. As she expected, his eyes were riveted to them---and away from her waist, where the blade of her sickle was pressing against her jacket. Although the light was dim, it was growing gradually brighter, turning into a bleak, gray day. It felt a lot like it was going to rain.

"I feel a lot safer with you around, you know," she purred, batting her eyes. "A lot of boys---they'd just think this was a wonderful opportunity to rape me. You, though---you're a gentleman. I can trust you---can't I?" She gave him her most appealing look.

As she had expected, Toshinori swelled up with pleasure at her praise, reminding her even more than he usually did of a frog. _If I let him live, someday this boy will marry_, she thought_. Someday this boy will become a father. Perhaps civilization will be lucky---perhaps the H-bomb will land first!_ She smiled. _Killing this self-important, arrogant snob could be seen as a service to womankind in general_, she decided. Rather than let some poor woman be sacrificed on the altar of Toshinori Oda's marriage bed, she would heroically prevent that by putting him out of her misery.

Looking behind Toshinori, she let her eyes go wide. "Toshi---what's that?" She pointed behind him, into the woods. "Merciful Buddha---is that Kazuo Kiriyama?" The fear in her voice would have convinced almost anybody. Toshinori acted on instinct, turning toward the woods---and away from Mitsuko.

With a single fluid motion, she yanked out her sickle and swung it, aiming straight for Toshinori's neck.

Toshinori Oda

Toshinori hadn't been quite as trusting as Mitsuko apparently thought he had. He had played along, and enjoyed every minute---for some reason, most women other than the female servants in his household tended to ignore him, and attention from the acknowledged beauty of their class, whatever her motivations, was pleasant---but he had expected some sort of treachery.

When she swung her sickle, he was already ducking, taking advantage of the height differential---he was much shorter than Mitsuko, shorter than nearly everybody in their class save the late, unlamented Yuichiro Takiguchi and Yutaka Sato---so, instead of slicing straight into Toshinori's throat, the blade bit into the side of his head, cutting nearly to the bone but not penetrating his skull.

The impact knocked him to his left, and he landed on his side, his head bleeding profusely. He was surprised that he didn't feel any pain; he could feel the hot blood soaking all over him, but no pain. Having landed on his left, he could reach the pistol he had tucked away on his right side, and he fumbled for it, bringing it out and aiming at the girl standing over him. Her beautiful face was twisted into a Gorgon's leer as she stepped forward, raising the sickle to strike again, and he struggled to pull the stiff trigger of the revolver.

Just then, a massive explosion shook the island. A few seconds later, Toshinori felt a shock wave travelling through the air, actually ruffling his hair slightly (where it wasn't slicked down with his own blood) and vibrating through the ground. He and Mitsuko both froze, staring off toward where the noise had come from.

END Chapter 13


	14. Chapter 14

Heads is Heads, Chapter 14

by Technomad

The explosion tore through the entire school building. Most of the roof flew off as flames erupted through every window and up to the sky. The shock wave was strong enough that Kazuo could feel it pulling at his hair and clothes.

All around him, his companions were screaming with joy, cheering and dancing and slapping each other on the back. Except for one. Alone in the eruption of happiness, Shinji Mimura stared down into the dale where the school had stood, rapt, as though he were staring at a vision of heaven.

"Shinji?" asked Shuuya, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Are you all right?"

"I…have lived the dream…" murmured Shinji, his eyes locked on the burning school. "I have done what all of us, what every student in the world dreams of…I have blown up the school!"

"That's all very well," said Kazuo, "but it butters no parsnips! We've got to get out of here! Our best bet's to get down to the port area and ambush a patrol boat, fast! We don't have much time!"

His calm voice cut through the celebration, and they all began running down toward where the docks were. That was the likeliest place for a patrol boat to land, and Kazuo knew that they'd be landing soldiers as soon as they heard the explosion.

Running past the school, they saw that several people had managed to make it out of the inferno. As they passed, Yutaka Sato gasped, and ran toward one of them. Kazuo took a closer look, and understood immediately. It was Yonemi Kamon, the Program's director---and the murderer of Fumiyo Fujiyoshi.

Yutaka's usual jokey demeanor was gone completely. The little fellow was absolutely berserk. As Kamon groaned and stirred, Yutaka was on him, screaming his hatred.

"You bastard! You complete sadistic bastard! You killed her!" he sobbed, kicking at the director's head and stomach before jumping on him and trying to strangle him. "I'll tear your head off and shit down your neck!"

Suddenly, one of the surviving soldiers managed to lever himself up enough to take a shot at Yutaka with his AK-47. His eyes widened in the ultimate surprise as he collapsed bonelessly across Kamon, bleeding from the mouth and the bullet hole in his back.

Takako snarled, pulling out her pistol. Before the soldier could do anything about it, he was falling back, his face a red ruin. She was aiming another shot at Kamon when Kazuo grabbed her.

"There's no time! Leave him! We've got to move quickly!" Nodding, Takako ran on after the others. As Kazuo had anticipated, the forbidden zones no longer existed; they passed through several, but nobody's collars exploded. He hadn't been completely sure that would be the case, but had felt that it was a risk worth the taking for the chance to escape.

The port area seemed to be deserted. They quickly found hiding places, and Kazuo found himself wedged into a dark space between two buildings, with Takako and Shinji. They settled in and waited for the boat to come in; they had a good view of the harbor area and the dock.

"Shinji…what about Hiroki?" Takako sounded worried. "He didn't know about this. What'll happen to him?"

"Hiroki made his choice, and he knew he was going into danger," Kazuo answered, after a few seconds' dispassionate consideration of the facts. "He was always pretty smart. When he sees that his tracking device isn't working, and hears that explosion, he'll figure out that he's got a chance to get away. He should be able to swim to another island. He'll probably be all right."

"I hope so." Further discussion was halted by Shinji's frantic signal for silence. A patrol boat was approaching, coming in to dock. They all froze, making no noise and being as still as they could be, as the boat edged up to the dock. Two sailors tied it up as the anchor chain went down and a gangplank was lowered, while a squad of soldiers gathered on the deck, ready to land.

Once the gangplank was in place, the soldiers trooped down it, heading for the school. They didn't look around themselves as they marched along; they apparently believed that nobody was in the port area save for themselves. This proved to be a nasty, fatal mistake for them, since once they were past and out of sight of the boat, Kazuo crept out behind them.

Aiming his submachinegun carefully, Kazuo turned it on its side, allowing its own tendency to kick to work in his favor, as he pulled the trigger. The soldiers hadn't expected to be attacked from the rear, and went down without a chance to defend themselves. Once they were down, Kazuo went from one to the next, methodically shooting each one in the head to make certain that they were dead. When they were all dead, he grabbed a couple of their AK-47s and as much ammunition as he could easily carry. He was running a little low on ammunition for the submachinegun, and wanted to make sre that all of them could be armed at need. Barely breathing hard, he ran back to join his companions.

Izumi was waiting for him at the foot of the gangplank. With an evil grin, she said: "Welcome aboard the patrol craft P-80, sir! I see you have your luggage all ready!" When he was aboard, she came running up the gangplank behind him.

Aboard the P-80, the scene was controlled chaos. The crew was down, dead or dying, being dragged out by the escapees and thrown into the water. Shogo Kawada and Shinji Mimura were dismounting some electronic device and carefully putting it back on the dock near where the boat was anchored.

Catching Kazuo's eye, Shogo grunted: "This transponder tells them where the boat is, so they don't cluster up in one place and leave gaps in the perimeter guard. Hopefully, they'll think that it's still where it is now, and give us a chance to get to Honshu safely." Kazuo nodded; having a Program veteran among them had, indeed, turned out to be extremely useful.

Down below, the engines throbbed to life, and Shogo ran for the bridge. "Cast off the lines and raise the anchor!" he called, and Shuuya and Mimura sprang to obey. The boat pulled away from the dock, and Shogo turned it, heading away from Okishima Island, toward the Honshu shore opposite.

Kazuo felt helpless and didn't really like it. He had no experience with boats, and no background that would help, so for the moment, he was nothing but a passenger. He rubbed his neck, where it itched, and was reminded that they all still wore the hateful explosive collars. His eyes went wide as he remembered what those collars could do.

"Does anybody know how to take these collars off us without them going off?" he asked. Everybody he looked at shook their heads. "They may still be able to track us with them." Shaking his own head at not having thought of that himself, he went to look for Shogo Kawada.

The burly Program veteran was steering the ship, with Shuuya and Noriko standing beside him as he explained how the controls worked. "We'll be hitting land in about 45 minutes, I think," he said.

"Good," said Kazuo. "Shogo---you seem to know an awful lot about the Program. Dare I hope that includes some way to remove these collars?"

Shogo grinned triumphantly. "As it happens, Kazuo, I do, but that won't be a problem anyway." He pointed down. "Somewhere aboard this vessel you should be able to find the proper tools, and there's a manual on how the collars work. I remember them taking mine off when they helicoptered me out, last time."

He looked off across the water, pensively. "I couldn't do what I wanted to do, originally. I couldn't save Keiko, and I'll have to live with that till the day I die. What I've done---with Shinji's help, and yours, and thank you very much---will have to do."

"Come on. Let's go looking." Kazuo turned and went below, and Shogo followed; Shuuya had the wheel, and they had some time to look.

Once they explained what they were looking for, the others were eager to help out; they all wanted the collars off with a passionate intensity that did not surprise Kazuo at all. He was rather surprised at how much he wanted to be free of the collar himself. It represented restriction, and he had always tried to be as free as he could, even in the Greater East Asia Republic. His leadership of his hoodlums had been his way of proving that he was free of the restrictions laid on him by his position in society; his background couldn't have been more different than theirs, but with him in command, they had been, on the whole, a well-oiled team.

After a few minutes, Takako came up with a set of tools and a manual with a picture of the collar on the cover. Shogo smiled at her as he took the tools, and her collar was the first one to be removed. When she was free at last, she threw herself into his arms and gave him a passionate kiss, surprising him.

"Easy! I just took your collar off!"

She clung to him with all her strength. "I know. I also know about Keiko. I can't ever be Keiko---but would you let me be Takako Chigusa, Shogo's girlfriend?"

Behind his imperturbable façade, Kazuo was highly amused at Shogo's startlement. He had noticed how Takako followed Shogo with her eyes, and the way she'd all but drooled when he had his shirt off, earlier. He looked around, and saw that there had been some more pairing off, as well; Mitsuru Numai was standing very close to Hirono Shimizu, their arms around each other's waists. He nodded, approving; Hirono had been one of Mitsuko Souma's girl gang, and he had long since been convinced of the advantages of a co-ed organization over the all-male version he had led before the Program.

When Shogo had unwound himself from Takako, he went on to free the others, and Kazuo heaved a sigh of relief at the feeling of the accursed collar leaving his neck. "Shogo---can't they track us with these things? The main tracking device was probably at the school, but they might have backups elsewhere."

Shogo nodded. "Excellent thinking, Kazuo; I can see where you got your rep for smarts. Why don't you take all of the collars, once I have them off, and throw them overboard?"

When the last collars had been taken off, Kazuo went out on deck to jettison them. Behind them, Okishima Island loomed, a darker lump in the night, barely visible against the cloudy night sky. The only light came from the towns along the Seto Inland Sea's coasts, glimmering on the murky water as he threw the collars in.

Behind him, he heard footsteps, and turned to see Izumi. The girl was looking at him strangely, and he wondered just what she wanted.

"Kazuo?" She sounded rather uncertain. Maybe she didn't know what she wanted, either? "When we hit shore---we're going to stay together, aren't we, boss?"

Kazuo concealed his surprise. "I would think that would make the most sense. If we stay in one place, we can stay hidden more easily, rather than scattering in all directions. We're going to have to escape the Republic, and we can't do that individually. Among us, we have enough skills to ensure our survival; as individuals, we're vulnerable, and anybody can be broken if the authorities have him for any length of time." That was utterly axiomatic, as far as Kazuo was concerned; when he had led his delinquents on various illegal missions, he had made very sure to give them no information beyond what they needed to complete the mission.

"No. I meant---you and me. We two, we're going to stay together---aren't we?"

"I must admit that I was originally skeptical about how useful you'd be, but you've more than justified it. I was a fool to overlook recruiting girls for my group of associates, back in Shiroiwa." Surely that was what she meant---wasn't it?

Izumi made a strange growly noise back in her throat, and then stepped forward. Before Kazuo quite knew what had happened, she was clinging to him, her lips insistent against his. Involuntarily, he responded; he was a teenage boy with an attractive girl in his arms, and he kissed her with a ferocity that he had always thought was quite foreign to his nature. It was as though another part of his mind had awakened from a long sleep.

When the kiss finally broke, Izumi stared into his eyes. "Get used to this, boss, because as far as I'm concerned, we two are a team from now on out. A team in _everything_. I know I can't ever go home. We'll all be on the most-wanted list, probably with 'shoot-on-sight' under our names." She laughed a rather strange laugh, almost as though she were trying not to weep. "And if I've got to be a wanted criminal, I _want_ to grab each day as hard as I can and live it as thoroughly as I can! I've wanted you for some time, and now I'm making my claim!"

Kazuo was utterly nonplussed for a second. He hadn't really given any thought to Izumi's love life. He was used to his female classmates shunning him, partly because of his hoodlum associates and partly because his cold manner intimidated them. His experience with women had been limited to the female servants in his family's mansion, and he had always known that their complaisance was largely due to duty.

His ruthless intelligence began analyzing this new development. He had found Izumi to be quite useful in many ways since her unexpected accession to his gang. She was intelligent, which was a refreshing change from the blockheads he had led; she was perceptive, she was pragmatic enough to accept that they couldn't ever go home---and she was quite easy on the eyes. On the whole, he thought that they did make a formidable team.

Izumi was looking at him strangely, as though she was afraid that he'd shove her away. When he hugged her closely, kissing her with all the expertise at his command, she melted against him, clinging to him convulsively. One of her legs came up and wrapped around his waist to hold him more tightly.

END Chapter 14


	15. Chapter 15

Heads is Heads, Chapter Fifteen

by Technomad

_Mitsuko Souma_

The roar of the explosion, followed by the shock wave, distracted Mitsuko from her goal of killing that horrible little snob, Toshinori Oda. Breaking off combat, she ran for where she'd stashed her guns, grabbing the Uzi and the Colt Government Model. She knew enough to know they were the most effective weapons she had.

Looking behind her, she saw that Toshinori seemed to be disoriented by the blow to his head; he was peering around, trying to see where she'd gone, but unable to follow. She slipped off through the undergrowth, putting some distance between her and her enemy, heading toward where the explosion had come from.

She was curious, and she knew that the explosion had been in the same area as the school. She hardly dared to hope for it, but if the school was down, she thought that she might be able to find a way, or make a way, to escape the Program.

_Hiroki Sugimura_

Hiroki looked up, warily, as he saw a flash off in the distance, in the direction of the school. Reflexively, he glanced down at his detector…then drew in his breath sharply. The detector was dark; he couldn't see any of the blips that indicated that other collars were near him.

Then he felt it; a shockwave that shook the air around him, and pulsed through the ground hard enough that he felt it through his feet. His eyes narrowed.

_What was that? Was it an earthquake?_ He shook his head. This was Japan; like everybody else, he'd been through earthquakes a-plenty, and this didn't feel like one. The "earthquake" theory didn't account for the flash, or for the fact that his detector seemed to have gone down.

Could the others have found a way to bring the school down? He hardly dared to hope…and yet hope was all he had, all he had had since the moment he had awakened in that hell-classroom, with that foul Kamon standing at the front, gloating. He shuddered, remembering…he had wanted to be sick when the soldiers brought in that body-bag, and they all stared in horror at the remains of their teacher, Mr. Hayashida. He'd apparently been killed when he objected too vehemently to their class being selected for participation in the Program.

_We never knew how much he really loved us…_Hiroki thought, feeling a twinge of guilt at the way he had always taken their teachers for granted. He had respected them, oh, yes…but he had always thought of them as slightly out-of-touch, comic figures, people he had to deal with in his daily life but who had no real existence outside of school. He wondered if Mr. Hayashida's family had been notified, and if so, how they were dealing with the news of his death.

That thought snapped him back to where he was with a vengeance. Even if the school was down, there were people out there, and some of them, at least, were playing. He had come across corpses---Mayumi Tendo, for one---while searching for Kayoko, and he didn't want to add to their number.

Experimentally, he tapped the detector. It remained stubbornly inert. Sighing, he stuck it into his shirt; that way, if it came on again, he'd feel it and could use it, and in the meantime, it was out of his way. He picked up his stick and twirled it, feeling it hum through the air. Against a gun, it was not a lot of use, but there were other weapons out there---knives, nunchakus, and such---and he knew that he was more than a match for any of his classmates if it came down to that sort of fight. He'd studied martial arts for years, and although he was a gentle soul at heart, he knew that to protect Kayoko, he'd fight without restraint or remorse.

Pulling out his map, he studied it, straining to see in the low light of very early morning; he didn't feel safe using the flashlight he had been issued. He quickly located where he was, and began to relate his location to the places that had been indicated by his detector the last time he had been able to check it.

The nearest blips were in the bushes a little distance away, and he moved toward them, being sure to make as little noise as possible. He had no way to know who was playing, and it made good sense to keep as quiet as he could until he knew what he was dealing with.

He pushed through the last bush, and paused, gasping involuntarily in surprise.

_Mitsuko Souma_

Cautiously, Mitsuko approached the Agricultural Association building. She could see clearly that there had been a great deal of activity there; the signs were all around. Pausing, she used her "street senses"---the heightened perception she had developed in her years as a delinquent, all but on her own---to try to see if anybody was around.

Nobody came out and challenged her, no shots were fired, there was no movement. Whoever had been there was gone. Switching on her flashlight, she squatted to examine the ground.

Boys and girls had been there; boys' shoes were different from girls', and their feet were larger. She wondered who it had been; she had seen Kazuo Kiriyama's gang earlier, and knew that there were at least two girls with it. This group seemed to be a bit larger, and had more girls, at least judging from what she could glean from their footprints.

What had they been doing? She had no idea, but whatever it was, it had to have been big. Kazuo Kiriyama was smart---scary smart---and had to have had a lot on the ball to keep a group together under the conditions of the Program. She peered around, but what she saw made no sense to her.

Then she topped the rise and looked down at the valley where the school was, and comprehension hit her.

_They blew up the school_! She was lost in admiration; she had dreamed, again and again, of destroying the schools she had wasted so many unproductive hours in. That it was this particular school made it all the sweeter. She hadn't much minded what she had to do in the Program, but it was not her idea of a good time, and she didn't think that dying to provide other people'sick thrills was a good idea. She was a pitcher in such things, never a catcher.

She sauntered down to the school, taking her time. With the school gone, she figured there was no need to fear the forbidden zones any more; she hadn't found any other devices to control them, and it followed inevitably that they had been in the school.

When she arrived at the edge of the schoolyard, she looked around for anything that might be useful. There was debris everywhere, and she could see the bodies of several of the soldiers who had been helping run the Program. Leisurely, she squatted and appropriated an AK-47 from one of the soldiers. "You don't mind if I take this, do you, darling?" she purred, smiling at its former owner. The soldier couldn't smile back; most of his head had been crushed. She stood and struck a pose---Valiant Girl Freedom Fighter, like some of the _anime_ her classmates so loved. The idea struck her as irresistibly funny, and she giggled, swinging the gun around to strike more poses.

A groan distracted her, and she whirled, aiming the rifle at the spot where it had come from. Her eyes widened with delight, and she walked over. "Hello, darling. I do hope you remember me!"

_Yonemi Kamon_

_What happened?_ Yonemi Kamon couldn't figure out what had happened. It was like being caught in an earthquake, but quite a bit worse---and an earthquake wouldn't have set off a huge fire, would it?

He had been sitting in the control center, dozing slightly as the soldiers monitored events, when all of a sudden, the world had exploded in a roar of flame. He had no idea of how he had gotten out of the school, but the next thing he remembered, he was lying in the schoolyard, unable to move, and in agony from what felt like burns all up and down one side of his body.

He vaguely remembered someone screaming at him and kicking him, but he couldn't be sure who it had been. There had been a sharp crack, and the kicking had gone away, and after that, things became very vague.

He felt something rolling him over on his back, and looked up at the brightening sky. A shadow resolved itself into a beautiful girl with a rifle in her hand. She leaned over and gave him a brilliant smile, her large, soft eyes seeming to glow with pleasure.

"Hello, darling. I do hope you remember me?"

It was vague---then it hit him! She had been in the last class in the Program---and it was still going on! He remembered, with icy clarity, joking and betting with the soldiers about who would survive---and she had been the top choice for survivors among the girls! He tried to move, to wriggle away, to get to his feet and run, but his body wasn't obeying him.

The girl---Mitsuko somebody-or-other, he thought---hunkered down beside him, studying him as though he were some sort of a new bug. She put the rifle down, and pulled out something that gleamed in the early-morning light. He recognized it as the sickle she had originally been allotted as a weapon, and terror froze his blood.

Mitsuko purred: "Oh, darling, I have so longed for this moment. At last, I can make my fantasies about you come true!" The tone was amorous, but the look in her eye had turned into an insane gleam. "Today will be the day you learn how loud and how long _you_ can _scream_!"

Even before the blade bit into his flesh, Yonemi Kamon was screaming loudly enough that he couldn't understood why his throat didn't tear.

_Hiroki Sugimura_

Hiroki had found Kayoko, and it looked as though she'd teamed up with a classmate already. Keita Iijima was standing beside her, a kitchen knife in his hand, as Kayoko aimed her pistol at him.

`"Kayoko! It's me---I'm not playing!"

Kayoko looked at him suspiciously. "What do you know about that huge boom we felt earlier?" At least she lowered the gun.

Hiroki was slightly startled by the question, but it made sense. The explosion had to have been audible across the whole island, and probably out to sea. "I think that someone managed to take down the school. It might have been Kazuo Kiriyama."

"Kazuo Kiriyama? The one with those thugs following him around? That Kazuo?" Kayoko screwed up her face, thinking…Hiroki thought she looked adorable. Finally, she nodded. "Makes sense, I suppose. I never could make sense of his taste for thugs, but I knew he was smart as a whip. Mom used to ask me why I couldn't get grades as good as his."

"How do you figure that they took down the school?" asked Keita.

Hiroki held out his detector. "This. I was issued it at the start of the Program, in place of a weapon. It told me where the nearest collars were---but, as you can see, it's not working. It stopped working when I heard the explosion."

"So the school's really down," mused Keita. "This is our chance to escape!" He let out a whoop of glee, as Hiroki and Kayoko instinctively glanced around to see if any players had been attracted. Back in Shiroiwa, such a thing would have never occurred to them, but even a day in the Program changed people.

"What do you think is the best way?" Kayoko asked. Hiroki gave it a few moments' thought.

"I'd say that if we can swim to Shikoku, we might well have a good chance of getting away. Avoiding those damned patrol boats will be easier without the collars giving our location away every second, and once we're across the water, we can figure out a way to get rid of them. I'm sorry I can't come up with anything better…"

"It'll do. Come on---I saw a car over there by the water, and we can salvage some of the tires to make a float!" Kayoko ran off toward the southern shore of Okishima, and both boys followed her, eager to escape while the opportunity existed.

_Mitsuko Souma_

Mitsuko was rather disappointed. She had planned to spend hour after happy hour venting her rage---her rage against men in general, her rage against society, her rage against her life---on Yonemi Kamon, but she'd hardly had more than half an hour before he gasped, shuddered and went lifeless. She cut and hacked at his corpse for a while, but it just wasn't the same, and the others were all dead.

Ah, well---it was time to be gone. She stood, and began considering options. The front of her clothes was all over blood and other, nameless, substances, and she wiped herself off as best she could with a jacket she pulled from a corpse. It didn't do much good. Peering off into the distance, she could see the lights of Honshu, and she estimated that she could swim the distance to the main island.

Once there, she could use the weapons that the gods had given her---a face and body like a man's dream of the perfect woman---to inveigle some poor soul into giving her a ride, and once she was someplace out of reach of the Program, obtain what she needed: new clothes, money, a place to stay. If necessary, she could resort to force, but she seldom had had to do so before, and she had reasons to believe that she could keep the guns in reserve, for real emergencies.

Holstering a pistol she had taken from the body of a dead guard, she ran for the water's edge, thanking the gods that swimming had been a sport she had always done well in.

END Chapter 15


	16. Chapter 16

Heads is Heads, Chapter 16

by Technomad

Izumi Kanai looked on as the patrol boat _P-80 _pulled away from the deserted dock, heading back out into the Seto Inland Sea. Once it was headed well out to sea, she saw movement on board, and a slim figure diving overboard. In a few minutes, the diver came swimming up beside the dock, and she was one of several people who helped Shinji Mimura up out of the water.

"Thanks to those time bombs of yours, Izumi, the boat should sink quickly. Scuttling her out in the middle of the Inland Sea will make it harder for those bastards to figure out just where we went. They'll have to search Shikoku and Honshu and the other Inland Sea islands, which'll give us more of a head-start than if they had a good idea of just where we'd gone," Shinji gasped, shivering convulsively as Shogo Kawada rubbed him down roughly with some towels they had salvaged from the heads aboard the boat.

By the time they had made landfall, they had formulated a plan. The first part of the plan was getting rid of the _P-80_, since it was a clue pointing directly to them. They had sent the boat back out with Izumi's time bombs attached to the scuttling cocks, so that the boat would sink quickly and farther out from shore than it would have if they had had to open the cocks before setting the boat back to sea.

"They'll find it eventually," Shogo had commented, scowling, "but every day that they take to figure out just where we might have gone is an asset. We've got to disappear."

Shinji looked around. The dock they stood on was apparently a commercial shipping operation's private dock, and there were several trucks standing nearby. His eyes lit up. "Can any of you drive? I can!"

Kazuo and Shogo both raised their hands. Shinji grinned and went toward the nearest truck. "Then we've got transport out of here, don't we?"

Kazuo spoke up for the first time since they'd hit shore. "You don't have keys for that truck, do you, Shinji? How are you going to start it?"

Shinji grinned. "Oh, ye of little faith! Have you never heard of 'hot-wiring?'"

************

Some days later, they were sitting in a small hotel on the west coast of Honshu. Their host had been effusively glad to welcome them, offering them whatever rooms they wanted for as long as they wanted, at no charge.

"Why is he helping us out?" Hirono had wanted to know. The others were also suspicious, wondering if the hospitality they were receiving was a prelude to betrayal. By this time, the government had worked out who had escaped, and their faces---along, Izumi noticed, with Hiroki Sugimura, Kayoko Kotohiki, Keita Iijima and Mitsuko Souma---were featured on every newscast. The crimes they were accused of committing grew more lurid by the day, and the rewards for their capture grew accordingly.

Shinji smiled rather grimly. Leading them down the corridor, he pointed to an alcove they hadn't noticed, where a picture of a girl about their age hung, draped in black. "She was in the Program about four years ago. Izumi, you may remember her."

Izumi did remember her. The girl had nearly won, only to be taken down in the last few minutes by a classmate that had been playing 'possum. Izumi shuddered---there, but for the grace of the Lord Buddha, go all of us!

Having lost a beloved child to the Program, their host was highly motivated to help them, but his help was limited to rooms at his secluded hotel and meals. Other things, they had to provide themselves, and that was where Kazuo, Shogo and Mitsuru's various skills came into play.

_Hirono Shimizu_

Hirono walked down the street, arm-in-arm with Mitsuru. Neither of them looked much like the unflattering school photos that were on every newscast; Mitsuru had had his hair cut much shorter, and Hirono was wearing a long wig over her distinctive "punk girl" 'do. Wearing different clothes and just acting differently also helped a lot. To all appearances, they were a young _sarariiman_ and the woman he wanted to be out with.

Even in disguise, though, they were taking precautions. They unobtrusively avoided street lights, since the harsh light might pick out flaws that someone might notice. It was also a dark, cold, unpleasant night, and most people were not inclined to be abroad.

They came to the ATM that Shinji had spotted earlier, in a reconnoiter of the town. It was perfect for their purposes; it stood by itself a way away from the bank that owned it. Mitsuru reached into his raincoat pocket and came out with the device that Shinji, Shogo and Kazuo had built in the hotel basement earlier.

It consisted of a palmtop computer wired up to a standard ATM-compatible card. They slotted the card into the ATM, and turned on the palmtop. When the computer was booted up, they typed in the instructions that Shinji had written down for them on an index card.

The ATM's screen flashed, and it began spewing out money. Mitsuru's eyes lit up---which Hirono thought made him look adorable---and he began gathering the money up as quickly as he could. When his pockets were stuffed, Hirono took over; both of their raincoats were equipped with large, capacious pockets that had not been part of their original design, thanks to Takako and Noriko's skills with needle, thread and cloth.

When the ATM was empty, they pulled out the card, hid the palmtop and card under Mitsuru's coat, turned, and walked away quietly, not hurrying. They had more experience with crime than anybody else in their group, even Kazuo, and they knew that running away would attract attention. Instead, they looked just like a normal young man and his wife or girlfriend, out for an evening stroll.

Before they had set out, Kazuo had called the police, to alert them to a bomb threat on the other side of town. Shinji had spoofed the telephone system, to make it look as though the call had come from where the bomb was supposed to be. In this small city, that would monopolize the attention of the police, so that even if someone had seen something suspicious about them at the ATM, they had a good chance of getting away before the police could respond.

In a low voice, not whispering---they both knew that a whisper's sibilants could be heard for farther than a low mutter---Hirono said: "Back in Shiroiwa, can you imagine what it would have been like if Shinji and Shogo had been doing this along with our groups?"

Mitsuru grinned wolfishly. "We'd have had Shiroiwa all but sewn up!"

_Noriko Nakagawa_

Noriko didn't know quite what to say, or to think. She held the phone close, tears running down her face. "But, Mom---you know I can't do that! Mom!" The tears ran faster, as she gabbled on: "Look, they'll give him back eventually---you know they will! They wouldn't hurt a little boy, would they?" All she heard on the other end of the line was a click.

She put the phone down, staring straight ahead. As though she were in a dream, she said: "You'll always have a daughter, Mom---like it or not!"

Takako Chigusa and Izumi Kanai both gave her concerned looks. "I take it the call didn't go well?"

At Takako's blunt question, the barriers of self-control broke, and Noriko broke down weeping uncontrollably for the first time in years. "She said that she wanted me to turn myself in! She wants me to turn all of us in!" Noriko curled up in a small ball, shaking. "She said she doesn't have a daughter any more!" The howl that had been building from the moment she heard her mother disowning her burst out.

Both girls' eyes filled with tears, and they scrambled over, holding her close and letting her cry. Shuuya and Shogo poked their heads in. "I take it the phone call didn't go well?"

"All that trouble Shinji went to, making sure that call was untraceable, for this. By now, the authorities are probably tracing that call all over Southeastern Asia---just so that Noriko could get a faceful of shit." Takako's voice was gentle, but her eyes were blazing through tears, and if Mrs. Nakagawa had seen her, she'd have been running for her life.

Kazuo came in, having apparently overheard. "I'm not terribly surprised," he observed, his tone as dispassionate as ever. Noriko glared at him, amazed that he could so casually dismiss her pain. "They've arrested my whole family. Right now, Shiroiwa's locked down tighter than a prison. It's a good thing we're nowhere near there."

"We can't turn ourselves in. We can't let any of us turn ourselves in." Izumi's voice was flat. "Even if they'd let our families go, it would be a betrayal of all those who died, both in this Program and in previous years."

In her heart, Noriko knew that they were right, but it was bitter knowledge. Choking back her sobs, she whispered: "We have to go on. We have to escape. The rest of the world has to know about this. We have to survive." She drew a long, shuddering breath. "Even without my family---I have to go on."

Shuuya knelt by her, tentatively putting an arm around her. "You do have a family. You have us." Shuuya looked rather shocked when she grabbed him, clinging like a limpet and crying even harder, but the girls all looked as though they understood.

_Izumi Kanai_

Izumi stood in the door, watching as Shogo and Kazuo pored over a map. "May I join you?" she asked, polite as an office-lady. Both boys nodded absently, not taking their eyes off the map of the Sea of Japan. "Figuring out where we'll be going?" she asked.

Kazuo nodded, taciturn as always. Shogo, more responsive, answered: "We're not far from several fishing ports here. We can get a boat there and from that point it's hey! for the Asian mainland."

Kazuo said: "We're figuring out where to go. The Republic of Korea's fairly close, but Japanese aren't popular there. The government itself would welcome us, but I'm not sure about long-term living there." He pointed at the map. "It's also too close to North Korea, and war's been threatening lately."

"I don't fancy getting atomized, or thrown into a North Korean prison. Also, as Kazuo said, we might run into problems living in Korea long-term. So, Korea's out," mused Shogo. "That basically leaves Russia. China's well out of range, and we'd have to pass through the straits between Korea and Japan to get there anyway."

"From here, Vladivostok looks like a good bet," Kazuo observed, pointing to the map. "I don't think we want to stay in Vladivostok itself, but from there, we can grab the Trans-Siberian Railroad and go clear across Russia if we need to do so."

"Yes, I'd bet that Vladivostok's crawling with agents of the Greater East Asia Republic," Izumi said. At the boys' looks, she raised an eyebrow. "If the Republic's intelligence services don't have a good many people there, they're incompetents who should be fired!"

Shogo quirked an eyebrow up and gave her a rather quizzical grin. "You sound rather passionate about that."

Izumi felt herself blush. "Since we've been here, one thing I've been doing is catching up on my reading---and thank you, Kazuo, for your suggestions. I've been reading _Sonshi_---the _Art of War_. In there, it says that 'know your enemy, know yourself, and in a hundred battles you will never be defeated.'"

Kazuo nodded. "That's one way to translate that passage, and you're perfectly correct. To escape and stay free, we're going to have to think ourselves into the minds of those people. And we'll have to do it for the rest of our lives."

Shogo sighed. "Personally, I'd rather swim in sewage than go into their so-called 'minds,' but needs must when the devil drives." He bent down over the map again. "Now, let's see, how far exactly is it to Vladivostok? I think we may have to be at sea for several days, so we should plan on bringing food…"

_Takako Chigusa_

Even though she had known this day would come, Takako felt as though her heart would break. She was standing on the deck of a fishing boat, headed out to sea and looking back for the last time at the land of her birth. It was a cloudy, drizzly day, which suited her mood completely.

Greatly to her surprise, when they had decided on which port they would take, they had found that help was available. The captain of the boat they were on had been delighted to do all he could. "I go to Vladivostok all the time anyway," he had said, "and dropping you off there'll be no problem at all!"

"Why are you so eager to help us?" Shogo had asked, his hand on the pistol in his pocket. "Did you have a child in the Program, or did you know one?" That had been the reason most of the people who had helped them along their way had taken the risk; the Program was highly unpopular with those who had actually felt its effects.

"Me? No, I've never had any children. My nieces and nephews are all older than you are, and their classes were never chosen."

"Then why?" Shogo's eyes had narrowed; all of them were very wary of betrayal. The rewards for their apprehension, alive or dead, had become astronomical, and they had read reports of people who happened to resemble their school pictures being arrested and subjected to intensive interrogation to try to "break their stories."

The fisherman had stared back at Shogo, unintimidated by him or the others, even though he was outnumbered and, unlike them, unarmed. "_Because it's just wrong_."

Takako had noticed that Kazuo had looked nonplussed. The others had nodded, understanding instantly what the man meant. She looked across the deck at Izumi Kanai, who was huddled up in a rain slicker and clutching the rail, her face already ghost-white.

_He may __be__ delectable, dear, but better you than me_! thought Takako. She had spent some time puzzling over Kazuo Kiriyama. While Shogo was often prickly and difficult, his background went a very long way to explaining it. Kazuo, on the other hand, was an enigma.

She looked back as Japan receded into the mist, and she noticed that all the others had come out on deck to bid their homeland farewell. _Stupid mist---it gets in my eyes_, she thought defensively, noticing that she could hear sniffling and muffled sobs even over the throb of the engine and the keening of the gulls.


	17. Chapter 17

Heads is Heads, Chapter 17

by Technomad

_Mitsuko Souma_

Mitsuko smiled to herself. She looked around the apartment with considerable satisfaction. It would do just fine as a hideout, she figured, at least for a few weeks.

The rightful tenant would be no problem at all. At that moment, he was on a business trip for his employer, and would be gone for the rest of the month. Before he was due back, Mitsuko intended to be far away.

When Mitsuko had reached the shore, she had acted quickly to distance herself from the pursuers she knew would soon be on her trail. Finding a clothing store that wasn't open, she had broken in and helped herself to some different clothes, choosing garments that did not suggest a high school uniform. In them, she looked several years older than she was. She also found money in the shop's till, which she appropriated, and used to get herself a very different hairstyle a few hours later. Sacrificing her luxurious mane of black hair had cost her a pang, but she knew how much different she'd look dressed like an office-lady with a cut nearly as short as a boy's hair.

In the restroom, she had carefully worked with a hairpin and a nail-file to remove the awful collar from around her neck, finally being rewarded with the sight of it opening and falling off. The relief had been indescribable; even though the thing wasn't really uncomfortable, she didn't like the idea of wearing it, and it was incontrovertible proof of her status as a Program escapee. She had then taken the collar and thrown it into the back of a nearby dump truck that had stopped for a red light, figuring that if the government tried to track her with the collar, they could go chasing the truck to their hearts' content.

Her new clothes weren't as ultra-fashionable as she would have preferred, but they had the advantage of fitting loosely enough that she could conceal her gun. With some regret, she had abandoned the Uzi and Kalashnikov on the island; they were much too big to easily conceal, and absolutely impossible to disguise or explain. She had kept the Colt Government Model and its ammunition, figuring that it had enough punch to do the job, and was fairly easy to carry. She also had one of the dead guards' pistols, which had the advantage of having a common caliber with what the police usually used.

_If I get into a real firefight, the game's up, anyway_, she thought. She touched the butt of the pistol, and smiled grimly to herself. She did not intend to go down easily, and did not intend to _ever_ be taken alive. The last bullet, if needs must, would be for her.

Smiling slightly, she prepared for bed. A real bed, after sleeping rough on Okishima Island, was just the thing she wanted.

_Hiroki Sugimura_

Hiroki crouched in an alleyway, watching as a police car prowled by in the street. Behind him, Kayoko shivered with fear; she had never been a rebellious girl, and she really wasn't cut out for this. _No more than I am_, he thought wryly.

Keita Iijima hadn't made it; he had had a nasty cramp while swimming, and went under before they noticed that he was missing. Hiroki regretted that, but in an abstract way. Most of his mind was concentrated on what he had to do next.

They had ditched their school uniform jackets, since they were much too conspicuous and distinctive. Watching her opportunity, Kayoko had managed to steal some others out of a dryer at a laundrette; the owner had been distracted by a crying child at the time. With different jackets, and with their hair roughly cut differently (by Kayoko, again) they at least didn't look just like their class pictures. The school in the town they were in used the kind of jackets they were wearing, so they looked local enough to pass, at least at first glance.

Hiroki cudgelled his brains, trying to think of a plan. He cursed himself for not having gone with Kazuo and his followers; he was sure that Kazuo had come up with a brilliant plan to foil their tormentors and escape with all his group. He, on the other hand, had been concentrating on finding, first Takoko, then Kayoko, and after that, things had been rather vague. He hadn't allowed himself to face the fact that even if he found both girls, they still had no way off the island---or out of the Greater East Asia Republic.

The image of his old kung-fu teacher swam into his mind. The old man was smiling, reminding Hiroki that haste was a bad thing, and that calmness and introspection were paths to enlightenment. _Ground and center, ground and center_, he told himself. Ignoring the filth on the pavement, he sat down in lotus position, consciously emptying his mind and preparing to meditate.

"What are you doing? Have you gone _mad_?" hissed Kayoko. "Where do you think we are, you idiot, the Kannoji Temple?"

With those words, inspiration struck Hiroki. "That's it! I've got it!" He jumped up and grabbed a startled Kayoko, kissing her. "You're a genius!" Towing his puzzled friend behind him by the arm, he started off down the alley, heading to a place where he knew he could obtain assistance.

_Mitsuko Souma_

The small bar's atmosphere was thick with smoke; most of it was tobacco, but Mitsuko could identify other intoxicants. She smiled to herself---this was just the sort of place she needed.

Unlike most Japanese bars, this place didn't employ "hostesses." Had there been such women present, Mitsuko would have been emphatically unwelcome; she'd have been seen as competition, and set upon almost immediately. She had considered hostessing herself, but regretfully rejected the idea. It involved too much dealing with the public, and with her face plastered all over as part of the Most Wanted List, that was far too risky.

_Pity, that,_ she mused. _I was always good as a leader of a gang of girls_…She knew that she might have a struggle to unseat the reigning "queen bee," but she also knew, cold-bloodedly, that she would want that position more than the incumbent---and, if all else failed, she wasn't above underhanded tactics. Planting contraband in another woman's handbag and then making an anonymous call to the police would be a doddle.

However, that wasn't going to happen, this time. She was after different game. Most of the people here were on the dodgy side of the law, and Mitsuko felt right at home. She was a long, long way from Shiroiwa; this was southern Kyushu and none of these people had ever met her before, which was just how she wanted it.

Selecting a table in a corner, she ordered a beer and settled in to listen and observe. She knew that she'd be treated with some suspicion until the regulars decided she wasn't a threat. These men were smugglers…and she wanted to be smuggled out of the Republic.

_Hiroki Sugimura_

The gong boomed, and Hiroki, along with the other shaven-headed novices, shut his eyes. He folded his hands into a _mudra_, and concentrated on _hara_-breathing---breathing from the center of his belly. As instructed, he concentrated on his _koan_:

_Before your father met your mother, what was your original face?_

The peace of the temple was just what he had needed. When he and Kayoko had arrived at the gates, they had been all but on their last legs, staggering with weariness and sick with terror. They hadn't been recognized, but it had been very frightening, all on their own with all of the Greater East Asia Republic's resources concentrating on finding them.

He was intensely grateful to the abbot for taking them in. He could have left them sitting at the gates for hours, or days, to test their determination, but after one look at them, he had sent the monks running for first-aid supplies, food, and blankets. For a second, he broke his meditation to thank Buddha for sending Kayoko to him. _She was the one who made me think of a temple---like this one, where my old kung-fu teacher's brother is the abbot!_

Once he had heard their stories, the abbot had offered them one of the best hiding places in all of the Greater East Asia Republic. Who, after all, would think of looking for a couple of renegade ninth-grade students in a Zen temple? Once their heads were shaven and they were dressed in novices' robes, they looked so much like the other novices that they'd be quite difficult to pick out without help---which would not be forthcoming. While Buddhism hadn't been persecuted the way most forms of Christianity had been, since it was so much more an intrinsic component of national culture, outspoken practitioners had often found themselves in hot water with the authorities, and there was an undercurrent of anti-regime feeling among people who took the religion seriously. Even if there were people in the temple who would be willing to turn them in, nobody but the abbot knew who they were.

Not only had he offered them shelter and a disguise, the abbot had seen that they were hurting in their souls. Hiroki, in particular, was tormented by guilt for the classmates he hadn't been able to save. Before they were made over into novices, the abbot had arranged a private ceremony.

Hiroki remembered sitting in the abbot's private chapel with Kayoko at his side, as the old man read out sections of the Lotus Sutra. Around them, the pictures of their dead classmates, taken from their school's website and printed, looked down on them, as incense smoke rose to the ceiling. Listening to the familiar words, he had felt peace stealing into his soul for the first moment since he had awakened in that hell-classroom, on that accursed island, with the monster Yonemi Kamon standing at the front of the room. He hadn't done anything wrong, after all. Those whose _karma_ it was to die had died, and their souls would go on, in the great cycle of rebirth, until finally they achieved enlightenment and freed themselves.

When he had confessed, in a private talk with the abbot, that he hated Kamon with every fiber of his being, the old man had smiled sadly and shaken his head.

"Do not hate Yonemi Kamon. Pity him. For what he has done, apparently of his own free will, he will have to suffer many, many rebirths before atoning." The abbot sighed. "Even Devadatta, who turned against the Buddha and tried to kill him, will some day be an enlightened being."

Forcing his mind back to his _koan_, Hiroki strove to attain the inner peace that the old abbot seemed to have.

_Mitsuko Souma_

Mitsuko crouched low on the fishing boat's deck, willing the passing patrol boat to notice nothing different about her. Just another fishing crewman, nothing to see here, move along…She could feel their eyes on her, cold and indifferent.

After what seemed like an eternity, the patrol boat hooted its klaxon twice,signalling the fishing boat to go on about its business. As she watched the patrol boat disappearing in the distance, Mitsuko let out a breath she hadn't been aware she was holding.

She had made herself useful to the smugglers of southern Kyushu in various capacities, horizontally and vertically. After she had helped them set up an informant, they had agreed to take her out of the Greater East Asia Republic. She wondered, cynically, if they had agreed to do it partly because their wives and girlfriends had met her, and seen her for what she really was---and wanted her out of the way.

_So long as it gets me out of here, I don't much care,_ she decided. She knew that most women disliked and resented her. Her beauty, crossed with the ruthlessness that had kept her alive, made her a dangerous competitor, and those other women, denizens of the underworld themselves, had sensed it instantly.

For a second, she wondered about the people who'd been on the island when the government re-took control. _Had they been executed, were they in prison_? She didn't really much care, although the thought of that horrible little snob Toshinori Oda trying his "I am superior, so worship me, you dumb animals!" act on a group of hardcore convicts made her smile.

All her life, people had been tools to be used, and discarded when no longer useful. She had executed Yoshimi Yahagi without a qualm, and would have done the same to Takako Chigusa if she hadn't been forestalled by Kazuo and his gang showing up.

She knew that if they had made it to civilization, they hadn't been captured. The media still trumpeted their names, and the crimes they were accused of committing grew more lurid by the hour. She had had little to do with many of them, but she knew more than enough to know incontrovertibly that Hiroki Sugimura would never rape a woman, and that Shuuya Nanahara would no more have set a fire that killed people than he would sprout wings and fly.

Ah, well…that was the past, and it was time to look at the future. Japan was receding into the distance, and Mitsuko, for one, did not feel like shedding any tears. The Greater East Asia Republic had not been a good place for her. This place they were going---some Korean port---had to be better, or at least, different. She wondered, absently, just where "Nampho" was, and wished absently that she had taken more of an interest in geography when she'd been in school.

END Chapter 17


	18. Chapter 18

Heads is Heads, Chapter 18

by Technomad

Noriko Nakagawa

Sitting by the window, Noriko stared out at the Siberian countryside rolling by. It was so different from her familiar Japanese landscape-unlike Japan, where every available inch of space was meticulously cultivated, Siberia was wild and untamed. Endless miles of forests stretched out on either side of the tracks, and towns were few and far between. For a second, she felt racking homesickness-she missed her family desperately, and hoped that they were all right.

The Russians had welcomed them warmly when they arrived at Vladivostok. They had been swept up by the Russian intelligence services, and quizzed intensively about every aspect of the Program-the collars, the venues, the selection process, the weapons distributed, everything they could remember. The more they had told the Russians, the more shocked and angry the Russians had been. Noriko couldn't speak Russian-foreign languages were difficult for native Japanese-speakers, and Russian had many sounds not found in Japanese-but she could easily pick up on non-verbal cues, and Russians were less restrained about such than Japanese were. She had picked up at least one Russian word from what she heard them saying, but she had been warned that _nyekulturny_ was a very bad word, and that using it could easily offend Russians.

She felt someone sitting down beside her, and turned to see Takako Chigusa. "Hi, Takako. How's Shogo?"

Takako looked worried. "Shogo? Ever since we got on the Trans-Siberian Express, he hasn't said a word. He just sits there and stares into space by the hour. He hasn't been eating-or sleeping."

Noriko was worried. They had had a couple of close calls with the intelligence services of the Greater East Asia Republic while in Vladivostok, which was partly why they were being moved across Russia; their train car was private and guarded, and the Russian armed forces were on alert as the Trans-Siberian Express rumbled through. If Shogo-Shogo, the only survivor of two iterations of the Program-was worried, that scared Noriko.

"Let's go talk to him, shall we?" Both girls got up and left the compartment, going down to the common area. The train car was divided into five sleeping compartments, a common area where they could all sit together, and a small kitchen where their meals were prepared. Much to Noriko's surprise, Vladivostok had boasted several Japanese restaurants, and they had a chef aboard who could prepare almost any kind of Japanese food, despite being a blonde Russian.

Sure enough, Shogo was sitting there, staring blankly out at the countryside. Noriko's heart went out to him. _He looks like he's staring into hell_… Sliding in beside him, she asked gently: "Shogo? Are you all right?" Shogo looked at her blankly, then turned and looked out the window again, not really seeing what was going past. Noriko patted his arm. "Takako's really worried about you, you know. Could you tell us what's wrong?"

Shogo shook himself out of his stupor. "You wouldn't understand, Noriko-and Takako wouldn't either."

"Try us." Takako sat down beside Shogo and took his hand; Noriko could tell that she wanted to slide her arm around his shoulders, but something about his body language made it clear that he wouldn't welcome it. "What are you thinking about?"

"Why I'm still alive. Why I'm still alive after two Programs, when all of my old classmates-and a good few of my new ones-are dead. Why them, and not me?" With that, Shogo turned and stared out of the window again.

Noriko could see that he didn't want to be disturbed, and she got up, respecting his wishes. Gathering Takako with her eyes, she went back up to the compartment they were supposed to be sharing (although there had been a great deal of re-shuffling; couples were sleeping together, and Shinji was apparently deep in pursuit of their pretty blonde chef) for some private talk.

"I was with him before you were, Takako. I'm pretty sure that he's never really forgiven himself for what happened when he first went through the Program." Noriko shook her head. "A lot of the people he killed-he got fourteen in all-were-had been-his friends."

"Oh, merciful Buddha!" Takako closed her eyes, shuddering. "I didn't have to kill any of our classmates myself; I'd have done Kazushi Niida if we hadn't been interrupted, but I can't imagine killing _fourteen people_! And the last one was his girlfriend…I think he wanted to die bringing the Program down, and he now doesn't quite know what to do with himself."

"I think you're right, Takako." Both girls looked up, slightly startled, as Shuuya Nanahara came into the room. "The Russians provided us with vodka, you know-and we guys almost all got good and plastered one night, to 'celebrate our survival.' You know that alcohol lowers inhibitions. That was probably why the Russians gave it to us in the first place-I think they were monitoring us, just to see what would come out."

"Shogo got toasted?" Noriko was curious to hear what came next. She had always seen Shogo as the type that kept things very much to himself, even more than most Japanese men.

"Yep." Shuuya looked sad. "We were pretty much all bawling like babies before the night was out. I'm worried sick about Miss Ryoko-the director of the orphanage I grew up at. You saw how Yoshitoki reacted when that slime Kamon told us he'd raped her for raising a fuss about us being taken-well, I understood completely. I asked the Russians to try to find out if she's alive. Shinji was crying that his uncle hadn't been able to make it out of the Republic. Mitsuru just missed Japan." Shuuya paused. "Shogo was crying the hardest of all of us. He's really never forgiven himself for killing Keiko. He fought so hard the first time around to try to find her-he wanted her to be the 'winner.'"

"Did it ever occur to him to wonder how _Keiko _might feel, knowing that she'd survived that way?" Takako asked, her eyes widening. "I don't know if I'd be able to live with myself, if some guy-Hiroki, maybe-did that for me!"

Shuuya shook his head, looking very sad. "I don't think he ever thought about that. He just knows that he killed her after she was trying to save his life. If they'd had more time to talk, she might have been able to talk him down, but between one thing and another, they just didn't."

Takako looked thoughtful. "I think that what we have here is a guy who's been screaming for forgiveness for quite some time. When we get to St. Petersburg, I'll want to talk to the Russians, and see if they've a Japanese-speaking therapist. Come to it, that might be a good idea for all of us." She looked haunted for a second. "There were things going on on that island that'll probably haunt us all till the day we die."

Mitsuko Souma

Mitsuko was wearing some very wispy lingerie, and high heels-and nothing else. She stared into the mirror, to make sure that the makeup she was wearing covered the dark circles under her eyes.

She cursed herself silently for not having paid more attention in school. To her, one Korean town was just like another. If she'd been more attentive, the name "Nampho" would have definitely rung alarm bells in her mind.

When the fishing boat had arrived, she had been horrified to find that, instead of the _Republic_ of Korea, she had landed in the _Democratic People's Republic_ of Korea, in the northern part of the peninsula. Unlike the Republic, the Demcratic People's Republic was a dictatorship so iron-fisted that it made the Greater East Asia Republic look like Utopia.

She'd been nabbed before she even could disembark from the boat, and hustled ashore. After a few weeks of gruelling interrogation, she had been told that she'd been assigned to "the Dear Leader's Pleasure Squad," and bundled off to a dormitory where she found herself among a group of other Japanese girls. Some of them had apparently been political dissidents at home who had bought into North Korean propaganda, while other poor souls had apparently been kidnapped by the North Korean intelligence service. One had been only thirteen when she was taken.

She had been briefed on her duties, which were apparently to be part of the "Dear Leader's" harem, and "available" to other top dignitaries of the country. The other girls hadn't had much to say, and she had gathered quickly that every word they uttered, even in what should have been absolute privacy, was overheard and monitored-and that dissent, even minor dissent, was severely punished.

The old crone-she'd been told to call her "Comrade Shin"-who was in charge of them beckoned her. Following obediently, Mitsuko found herself being led into a room where the rest of the "Pleasure Squad" awaited instructions, all of them dressed for an evening in the bedroom.

"You are to entertain the Dear Leader and his close advisors tonight. It is a great honor, and I expect every one of you to be on her best behavior. Disobedience will be severely punished, do you understand?" snapped Comrade Shin, looking at them all like they were something she'd stepped in on the street.

"Yes, Comrade Shin," Mitsuko murmured, along with the other girls. She kept her eyes down and looked as submissive and demure as she could. Inwardly, her mind was beginning to spin with schemes. _If I can get this "Dear Leader" wrapped around my finger, I may be able to pull the strings for this entire country! Okay, Mitsuko, it's __showtime__…for higher stakes than you've ever played before! Go for it, girl!_

With the other girls, Mitsuko walked into the Dear Leader's private sanctum, to find herself surrounded by some of the most grotesque-looking older men she'd ever seen in her life. For a second, she found herself flashing back to this smuggled American movie she'd seen…what was the name? Oh, yes-_Caligula_!

A dwarfish man with a strange, upswept hairdo swooped down and swept Mitsuko up in his arms. She stared at him, unable to believe her eyes, as he leered at her through bottle-bottom glasses. _And I thought __Toshinori__ was repulsive_! ran through her mind, and she mentally apologized to her old classmate. Compared to this creep, Toshinori Oda was quite attractive-and he could play the violin!

As she was dragged off to a secluded alcove, Mitsuko heard Comrade Shin say "Ah, our newcomer has attracted the attention of the Dear Leader, fortunate girl! See, girls-this could happen to any of you!" Mitsuko shuddered involuntarily, wondering if anything at all, even behind-the-scenes control of this country, could be worth what she was going to be subjected to. This man made Yonemi Kamon, or her stepfather, or anybody else, look like a girl's dream date!

Izumi Kanai

For Izumi, the days since they'd reached Russia had passed in what seemed like a whirlwind. The Russians had been all kindness, falling over themselves to do anything they could for the exiles, but Russia, itself, was still wildly alien in so many ways.

Yet again, she blessed the fortune that had made Kazuo Kiriyama throw in his lot with those who were resisting the Program. Without him, she was sure they'd all be dead. Even now, he was showing what he was made of-he was picking up Russian very quickly, astounding the Russian Intelligence personnel tasked with guarding them from retaliation by the Greater East Asia Republic's own foreign intelligence service.

The others were having a great deal of trouble with Russian, so when they were allowed out at all, they were always accompanied by interpreters, since very few Russians knew any Japanese, and the English they had been taught in school turned out to be horribly inadequate for actual communication, particularly with non-native speakers.

She was walking down the great avenue of St. Petersburg, Nevsky Prospekt, with the other female Program escapees and their minders, just window-shopping. She was overwhelmed by the sheer volume and variety of goods available. Along with the others, she had passed nearly half an hour looking longingly at the mannequins in the window of a lingerie shop, wondering how she'd look in the items they were wearing.

"Not that we need lingerie to make the boys interested, right, girls?" Hirono had snickered. The other girls had all chorussed agreement; at their age, all they needed to do was indicate willingness, and the boys were happy to take it from there. Still, Izumi was female enough to want to look pretty, even if it wasn't necessary.

Everything was different-the language, the alphabet on the signs, which she was just beginning to be able to puzzle out, the architecture, the smells-but it was still a city, and Izumi felt comforted down deep. She was a city girl, born and bred; the vast empty expanses of Siberia and European Russia, between train stops, had spooked her on a level she hadn't realized was even there.

"Tonight we're on the move again. They're going to send us farther on-to somewhere called the 'Kaliningrad Oblast,' Takako piped up. "I'll miss St. Petersburg, but, honestly, without money, window-shopping gets old, and we've been shown most of the sights here."

"They've got a naval base there somewhere, where we're going to be staying. I heard that they were worried that the Greater East Asia Republic was still trying to kill us for escaping," Hirono said. "Once things cool down enough, we'll be let go where we please, and I think they'll have jobs or stipends for us to live on."

Mitsuko Souma

The wooden stake felt rough and splintery against Mitsuko's back as she was tied to it. She was numb, though; she couldn't believe how wrong things had gone, or how fast it had happened. The dawn was breaking, off in the east, across the bleak field where she stood in front of an earthen berm. The stands in the stadium she was in were filling rapidly.

She had thought she was on a roll-establishing leadership over the rest of the "Pleasure Squad" and on her way to becoming the Dear Leader's favorite bit of fluff-when it had all come tumbling down. She couldn't figure out just what had happened.

_Probably Comrade Shin_, she thought bitterly. That old woman would jump off a cliff if the Dear Leader asked her to, and she hadn't taken well to Mitsuko from the moment they had met. Or it could have been the other Pleasure Squad members; they _had_ been here longer than she had, and had to know better how to work the system.

All she knew was that she'd been grabbed and dragged out of the Pleasure Squad's quarters, and thrown into a jail cell. Her attempts to charm her jailers and interrogators had come to nothing; she had never met men who were less vulnerable to her usual wiles and tricks. Even turning on the tears hadn't impressed them, and that had always worked back home.

She didn't quite understand what charges, if any, had been brought against her, and her requests for a lawyer had only provoked gales of laughter. Before she quite knew what had happened, she had been hustled out here and tied to a stake-and she now saw a squad of men with rifles marching toward her.

Mitsuko straightened her spine, forcing a smile onto her face. _I may have lived badly, but at least I can die well!_ she thought. Then she had another thought-_at least, I won't have to put up with the Dear Leader slobbering over me and feeling me up any more_! With that, she no longer had to force her smile. _Maybe my next life will be better-it couldn't be much worse!_ She stood proud and straight, as the firing squad took its position.

The sergeant in charge barked: "_Jun-bi_!" and the squad raised their rifles. "_Jyo-jun!" _was apparently the command to take aim. In the second before they fired, Mitsuko shouted: "_Banzai_! The Dear Leader's a repulsive perverted _dwarf_!" The squad clearly didn't understand Japanese-but the sergeant apparently did; his face turned grey with horror.

One final command, and she saw muzzle flashes. A terrible blow hit her in the middle of her chest, between her breasts, and she felt as though she were falling endlessly. Her last thought was that she wasn't terribly sorry to go.

Takako Chigusa

Takako felt as though she was in the Buddhist heaven. She and her friends were in Baltiysk, in the Kaliningrad Oblast-about as far from the Greater East Asia Republic as it was possible to be and still be on Russian territory-and they were being protected by elements of the Russian Special Forces. For the first time in months, she felt safe.

What was even better than that was that Shogo had improved dramatically. He had had long sessions with a Japanese-speaking therapist in St. Petersburg. When the whole situation had been explained, the Russians had sprung into action, finding a person with a great deal of experience with victims of trauma and loss. With help, Shogo had finally come to terms with his experiences, and now no longer blamed himself for Keiko's loss, or for the other people he'd killed in the Program.

"Your young man is very tough-minded," the therapist, a Doctor Kazakova, had told Takako. "He always was, apparently; he told me about how he often made Keiko cry with his opinions. Most young men quickly tailor their views, at least when they're with their girlfriends, but he didn't. I also got the impression that he did try his best to be good to her."

"Tough-minded, huh? I like that!" Takako smiled. She relished a good argument, and finding a guy who would stand up to her sounded wonderful. "And you say he tried to be good to her?"

"Yes. The thing that he did that haunted him the most was killing her, even though it was completely instinctual-she was pointing a gun, and he thought she was pointing at him. If the silly chit had had the mother-wit to yell 'Look behind you, Shogo!' she might be alive today."

"But would she want to live after killing her boyfriend-or letting him kill himself so she could live?" Takako's eyes had welled with tears. "I don't know if I could live with myself if it had been me!"

"He just wanted her to live. Treat him well, dear. You have a true treasure." With that, Doctor Kazakova had left, leaving Takako with a great deal to think about.

She was doing just that, staring out across the Baltic. The smell of salt water was familiar and comforting; like most Japanese, she had grown up not far from the sea, and although the Seto Inland Sea was nothing much like the Baltic, it was still a touch of home. They were far enough north that now, in June, the sun almost didn't set; even now, at nearly ten-thirty in the evening, the sky was light.

Shogo had come up behind her; she had smelled him even before he wrapped his arms around her. "A penny for your thoughts, Shogo," she teased, relaxing into his embrace.

"Look down the beach." Takako peered in the direction he pointed, and saw something strange. Kazuo Kiriyama and Izumi Kanai, dancing to music only they could hear. Kazuo was leading, with Izumi following like Ginger Rogers with Fred Astaire. Takako's eyes widened. They were dancing extremely well; of course, Kazuo was good at everything, and Izumi was apparently very light on her feet.

"Shall we join them?"

"No. Let's leave them to it." Shogo took Takako gently by the arm, and steered her back to the building where their quarters were. "I don't want to intrude. Especially on them."

As they walked back, she thought she heard him murmur:

"We can only learn so much and live."

FINIS


End file.
